TTC before marriage?

[Bb542]

Just curious are there many people here who are TTC before getting married?

Myself and DP have been together a long time. We are very settled with good jobs, a house and even a fur baby.

I always saw myself getting married before I had children, but we focused on our careers and getting a house until now. We know we want to get married and probably will in the next 2 years, but are we mad to have a baby before getting married? Some people have said we're mad because we won't be able to enjoy the wedding/honeymoon etc. However, I actually think there is something nice about having your children at your wedding.

I don't want to wait another 2-3 years before having children, especially as I'll be approaching an age where it could be difficult to conceive. But we won't be able to have the wedding we want for another 2-3 years by the time we save, get the venue etc.

I suppose I'm just wondering if anyone else is having children before they get married? Or is anyone else in a similar position? Ultimately we both want children soon so I'm not really looking for advice on what to do, more just to hear from others who have been in a similar situation.

Thank you 😊

Just make sure you’re going into it with your eyes open. Every day there are threads on here from women realising that the promise of marriage hasn’t materialised and they find themselves in a sticky position having had children and often reduced their earnings.

What your living situation? Do you have wills, life insurance etc? What’s the plan for childcare and how you’ll manage on maternity pay?

What about a small register office ceremony now and a bigger celebration further down the line?

As @piglet81 suggested just get the legal part done now and then save up and have the party when you want it.

Thanks for your replies. As I mentioned in the post, we are homeowners and have been for a number of years. Aside from a will, we have everything in place.
I will get 6 months fully paid maternity leave plus paid time off over the summer months.
If I was a bit younger we'd definitely get married first, but we worked hard to get our house and to where we are in our careers and now that we're a bit older, I'm worried that if we wait even longer, we could run into problems TTC.

Marriage doesn't need to cost anymore than the the cost of a licence. You can afford to get married, you just can't afford a big party and you need to decide which is more important. As PP said big party can be had later on down the line if registry office was the way forward but you wanted to celebrate with family later. This isn't meant in a judgemental way, I'm just stating the facts.

Having said that I know multiple people with children that weren't married. I know a few who were pregnant when they got married it's not unheard of in this day and age. Just if things are to go south your legally much less well protected financially.

@bb542 yep almost exactly the same except we're due to get married in a few months. We would have liked a big wedding but decided we would have a fancy vow renewal or nice family holiday around the 5 year anniversary mark instead, and save the money we would have spent for a mortgage overpayment for this term.

I would like to be married before we get pregnant but we're close enough to the date now that I likely won't show if we are successful.
Wedding planning is stressing me out even with a scaled back town hall one...

If you both know you want a fancy do post kiddos, go for it!

Why not have a simple ceremony now and then a party later?

We'd prefer to have the whole thing in one day with all our family and friends.

Thank you so much. I hope the wedding goes really well and fingers crossed for a BFP for you soon ❤️

I had a baby before marriage because of my age but it was definitely not the right way around and I do regret it. I had to bring breast pumps on my hen do as I was still breastfeeding (and it was the first time I'd ever left her overnight), it was 100x more difficult to plan the wedding when looking after a baby and even at the wedding we had to get GPs to look after her (which meant they ended up missing the latter part of the evening).

We started TTC before we got married but that was because we were both in our late 30s. And we were renting, both working and separate finances so even if my now DH would have left I would have been fine as I always have plans B and C in life. It ended in MC and it took us several years to get pregnant again so by then we had got married. This was just a quick registry office with 2 witnesses due to Covid rules at the time. Being married when I am home full time with our DD is definitely giving me security and I feel comfortable doing so.

DH and I had our son before we got married. We met later in our lives and knew we wanted to get married but were conscious we were against the clock with fertility. We had MMC with first pregnancy and then our DS. He was 18 months old at our wedding, DH and I have both said we're SO glad he was there, it was so so special. He truly made a happy day even happier.
We've since had 2 further miscarriages trying to have DC2, I'm nearly 40. If you know you want kids I'd just crack on. Your wedding will still be amazing if you have a bump or a baby. Weddings can happen any time, sadly babies can't.