Once I accepted the new course we were on, the pressure of curating the perfect day was lifted, and I was surprised to find that I didn’t feel an ounce of regret. In fact, I felt relieved. It’s not that I didn’t want to have a dream wedding — I absolutely did. Ridding myself of the planning stress certainly was a part of it. But I also think that deep down, I knew that I had lost sight of what our big day meant. Maybe the elaborate production I thought I needed wasn’t even what I wanted. It may be a cliche, but there’s nothing like a dramatic life change to really put things in perspective. I was happy: happy with our decision to go another route, happy with the unpredictable way our lives were unfolding, and happy with the idea of doing something much more personal if and when we decided to get married. Sometimes, you just have to roll with life's punches, and that's okay.

Sure, if it had been really important to us to be legally married before our baby was born, we could have eloped. (And even in 2015, there was still familial pressure to do so. Parents have a unique way of letting their disapproval be known.) But we weren't making choices for our parents, we were making them as parents. The idea of incorporating our little girl, the tiny mysterious person who was on her way into our lives, meant a great deal to us. So we decided to wait until after she arrived to make it official.

As fate would have it, on the night of August 22 — our original wedding date — I felt my first contractions. Thinking about it still gives me goosebumps.