Weddings are supposed to be lovely occasions for all involved. Whether you’re the one getting married or a guest sharing the happy couple’s special day, a wedding should be a day devoid of tension and arguments.

But we’re only human, and for every person who gets to officiate their friend’s wedding, there is the possibility of a conflict between a bride and a bridesmaid.

The latest comes via a Reddit thread in which a recently-married woman wants to know if she was unreasonable with a demand she made of one of her pregnant bridesmaids.

The bridesmaid, called Kate in the post, was seven months pregnant at the time of the nuptials. She, like the other bridesmaids, wore a dress that had “quite a flowy skirt with a fitted bust”.

Like many weddings, this one involved a photoshoot of the wedding party, which is when the trouble began.

The bride writes: “In one of the first photos I noticed Kate was deliberately holding her belly so it was really obvious in the fabric of her dress (think basically every maternity shoot photo ever taken). I asked her to stop holding her hands to show off her belly and to just pose like everyone else. I had to remind her a few more times before we’d finished taking the wedding party photos.”

Since the wedding, the bride and Kate haven’t spoken. A mutual friend said that Kate is annoyed at the bride for “trying to make her look fat, not pregnant” during the photos.

Many posters have sided with the bride, with one saying “those are your wedding photos, and there is absolutely no reason someone should be deliberately showing off their ‘baby bump’ to take away from the bride in a photo”. Another said that it was the bride’s day and people were there to “celebrate your marriage, not there the celebrate her being pregnant”.

While on the one hand it’s understandable that the bride would want her wedding pictures to be perfect, we’re a little tired of pregnant women being shamed for the way they stand and being made to feel like they’re seeking attention when they’re doing something that comes naturally.

There are plenty of commenters who are sympathetic towards Kate, pointing out that she may have been self-conscious, and that for many pregnant women, cradling their bump is a comfortable position and one that makes them feel like they’re protecting their baby.

One poster said: “As someone who was very recently pregnant, I can tell you I posed with my hand on my bump in every picture I took. I put my hand in my bump when I went out in public. Because it sucks being giant, and yes, you want people to know you are pregnant and not just huge. Posing like that is not trying to make it into a maternity shoot, unless she pulled the camera person aside and asked to take pictures of herself with her bump. She was just trying to feel halfway decent about herself in the pictures.”

Another pointed out that “maybe she truly didn’t realise she was even doing it and was just embarrassed (hormones are a bitch) that the bride kept calling her out?”

Someone else asked if it was “attention seeking to be visibly pregnant at someone else’s wedding?” They continued: “Because it seems like the bride (and a lot of commenters) are treating this girl like she maliciously planned to take over the wedding by not hiding her pregnancy, which is insane to me.”

One person who can probably empathise with Kate is Meghan Markle, who has been repeatedly criticised for holding her baby bump when out and about in public, with people say she is trying to attract attention to herself.

It’s a tiring narrative - pregnant women holding their baby bumps is completely normal and not at all attention seeking.

We hope this bride and her bridesmaid can find a way to make up, but mostly, we hope that pregnant women stop being told what to do with their bodies.

Images: Unsplash / Getty