Wanting to keep our destination wedding date with a newborn — am I mad to think this can work?

[Bianca2025]

Hi everyone,

I’d really appreciate some honest advice or experiences.

We’ve planned a destination wedding, and I’ve just found out I’m pregnant. It’s lovely news, but the timing means our baby could be around 2 months old — maybe even younger — when the wedding happens.

The thing is, I mainly want to make it work and keep the date. I love the wedding we’ve planned, and I don’t feel ready to give that up. But I’m also wondering… am I mad to think this is actually doable with such a tiny baby?

I’m a very organised person and I like having things under control, so the idea of travelling abroad and managing a newborn while also being a bride feels like a lot to wrap my head around.

Has anyone here had a destination wedding with a very young baby? Or travelled internationally with a newborn?
How did you handle the flights, the logistics, feeding/sleeping, and actually enjoying the day?
Did you bring extra support? Would you do anything differently?

Even if you haven’t done it yourself, I’d love to hear what you’d do in my situation.

Thank you so much for any advice ❤️

I would move it, sorry.

I got married when ds was 4 months old and I was still happy to have a wedding within walking distance and a reception literally at the end of the road.

Flying short haul for our honeymoon at 4 months and a bit was absolutely manageable but it wasn’t super easy and relaxing - however, much easier than when ds was 2.5 which was the next time we tried it!

First babies are the hardest to deliver. I had a horrible birth, followed by surgery. By 8 weeks I had managed to move house, but it was pretty awful and I had a lot of parental support. Not something I would have chosen but you can do that looking awful and feeling awful. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to feel like that on my one and only wedding day!

Travelling with a tiny baby is the easiest it will ever be, you need a sling and some boobs. So in theory yep it would be fine.

However there are too many variables that two months is cutting it too fine, you could have had a section, you could have gone over due and not get a passport on time, you might not be able to breast feed which then makes travelling more difficult.

honestly if you can push the wedding back, even by one month I would do it.

You'd be putting yourself under a lot of pressure and there is a high chance something won't go according to plan. The wedding you had originally envisaged won't be that anyway once you have a baby to consider, and you'd also be missing out on the precious first few weeks with your first child because of running around worrying about passports and vaccines.

I would postpone the wedding, do it before baby comes or move it to nearer home. You could always have some sort of gathering in the destination for the next milestone event - big birthday, anniversary etc. Babies change things.

Partly depends on the destination, Europe maybe, Caribbean or Bali no. You might be late, so a four/six week old rather than eight, so no jabs, you might still be recovering, tired from broken nights, sore and wobbly tummied from the delivery. You may not be able to lift more than the baby, let alone find time to pack and dress up. Will you be able to get the birth registered and a passport n time?

I’m sure this is true for some people but it used to make me feel really trapped and inadequate seeing people say that when ny baby was tiny and it was very hard to leave the house with him for so many reasons to do with his needs and habits and my body and mind. Now I have an eleven month old who loves being out and about, loves transport, is sociable and easy to entertain, and travelling is a breeze. So it’s not true for everyone!

I’m another who thinks that there isn’t enough info
Where are you going? Is it just the two of you or are friends and relatives coming? If they are, are they just out there for the wedding or also for the honeymoon?

4 or 5 months yes
Under 2 months no

2 months post-partum will be fine as long as

you don't have any negative effects from pregnancy, birth, or c section. You could be immobile. You never know.

get passport in time.

got to think about jabs, whether you want to go without our NHS jabs, whether you want to give baby any necessary travel jabs so young

are you going to be sleep deprived? (I don't think this is a given) depends how you sleep

will baby need any time in NICU?

will baby be premature? and perhaps be less fit to fly?

You can risk it but keep in mind it may all have to be cancelled if you or baby simply cannot fly.

Thinking about only YOU and not the baby logistics here:

I was in hospital for a week after the baby was born, what if baby is late and then you need an unexpected hospital stay
I couldn't walk comfortably after I had a vaginal birth with intervention for a good few weeks
I felt like I was leaking from everywhere, boobs, vagina, with huge pads and nipped pads on. It felt hugely unattractive for a few weeks. I wouldn't have wanted to get married like that.

If you go overdue and then you're waddling around padded up, are you going to feel like getting wedding ready?

Everyone else has already mentioned stuff like passports for baby, etc, so just thought I'd mention other things that might bother me.

Loads of women bounce back after babies and are pushing prams around at 3 days old. I was not one of those people.

Me neither, and I dont know many who were.

I think there is still an element of mystique and therefore surprise around the immediate post partum period.

Most women stay in hospital or very close to home with only intimate circle visitors for the early days. Many of us have not been in the intimate circle of another post partum woman prior to giving birth ourselves.

The shock of what I had been through and how alien my body felt afterwards, plus the sheer physical toll that cannot be wafted away, the sleep deprivation, the bleeding, the swelling, the leaking boobs, the night sweats, the skin breakouts, the endless crying (mine).

It was all a huge surprise and shock.

I am a super fit, super organised, very much PMA & push through type. I'm irritatingly energetic and enthusiastic etc. I've travelled long haul loads. I had airy fairy twinkly lights natural births.

I could not have managed nor would I have enjoyed or even felt mentally present at an event like this so soon after giving birth. And if I could have dragged myself through it at pain of death, the last thing I would want is to have photos of it.

If you decided to book then had to cancel would you be covered by insurance?

A lot of variables here about how the birth goes and what your baby is like. My first was a happy baby and napped well at this age. My second was SO tough with colic and reflux, i was in a dark bedroom from 4-11pm with a screaming baby till she was 14 weeks old. I couldnt even make it to a baby class let alone an airport or wedding!
Id postpone, or do something simple before the birth near home. You really are in the trenches at that point and even a local ceremony and lunch would be an undertaking. I think spending ££££ on an wedding abroad would be a huge waste as you might not enjoy it x

You don’t know what kind of delivery you will have. You don’t know what kind of baby you will have.

we had a baby that we had to take to the doctor for a health check every day for weeks. It was exhausting, especially since I was recovering from a more difficult than normal c-section. She barely slept. She screamed and screamed. She absolutely hated the car seat.

getting on a plane would have been insane. The first time we did finally travel, dd held her urine for 24 hours in protest because we were using a different nappy. She didn’t go until we got ahold of the normal kind.

some babies are just crazy difficult. Adding that to your wedding isn’t going to work

Mine still needed feeding every hour to 90 mins at that point and normally fell asleep on me when done. If you're breast feeding, you'll either spend the day disappearing or sat around with a feeding or sleeping baby. That's not necessarily a problem, but might not be the wedding you planned!

DD cluster fed all evening at that age.

Both of mine did too avd if the OP wants to FF she’ll need to research whether it’s possible to do this safely on the trip.