What To Wear For Maternity Pictures

Maternity shoots can be done for a handful of reasons. Maybe you want to celebrate your pregnancy, capture this special moment in time, or use the photos to reveal your pregnancy to others. The latter is exactly what my husband and I did with the photos. When preparing for the maternity pictures my biggest concern wasn’t where we would take the photos. Nope. My biggest concern was what to wear for maternity pictures?

My husband and I waited until I was five months pregnant to “publically announce” our pregnancy because I always told him I wanted a noticeable belly in my pictures for everyone to see. By five months, it’s pretty hard to cover up that growing belly! But I managed to stay out of photos until this point in my pregnancy, fully knowing my goal was to “announce” to everyone when the belly was no longer hidable.

Comfortable and Beautiful

So, what’s best to wear for maternity pictures? This is totally up to you, Mama! My advice would be something you not only feel comfortable in but feel beautiful in. Pregnancy can leave you feeling less than beautiful at times. With feeling sick and bloated, not fitting into any of your clothes anymore, and just dealing with the constant hormones raging throughout your ever-changing body, you can be left feeling not yourself at times.

But despite it all, pregnancy is a really beautiful time in your life, and capturing this time with photos can be special for you, your partner, and your little one(s) to look back on. You and your partner can use this time to bond more over the pregnancy. After all, there are so many emotions tied to pregnancy. You’re both happy, excited, nervous, scared. Maternity photo shoots can help the two of you express these emotions together.

Maybe you can create a theme for the photo shoot, include previous children, incorporate four-legged companions, or use props (like a letterboard or balloons). Regardless of what you chose, have fun and make this time in your life even more memorable.

What I wore for my pictures

Like I mentioned above, I recommend wearing something comfortable that you can feel beautiful in. On a whim, I found a dress that did exactly that. I’ll admit, this wasn’t my first option. I had planned a white sweater and jeans outfit because this is typically what I am most comfortable in every day and feel the most beautiful wearing. However, when that 5-month mark hit it was still about 80+ degrees outside in October, which is not normal for my area.

As much as I hoped for a significant drop in temperature, I had to accept the fact that it wasn’t going to happen. With only a few days left to plan an outfit, I got lucky and found this beautiful powder blue cotton dress (this also is availble in a sleeveless option!) Blue because it’s a BOY! Originally I was going to have my husband wear something blue while I wore my white sweater, but we ended up swapping colors due to the high temperatures and outfit changes.

I was so happy with the blue dress, it was tight enough to show off my bump but not too constricting to make me feel uncomfortable. Not to mention it was super affordable, and with a baby on the way, I can’t help but want to be a little more frugal these days. This dress comes in lots of colors.

When in doubt, go with a comfy dress that shows off your bump, Mamas! Have fun with your own maternity pictures and always remember to feel beautiful!