The bride at the centre of online controversy around breastfeeding at her wedding has shared her side of the story.
A note that Shelby Platter sent around with her wedding invitations last month went viral after it was shared on Facebook by one disgruntled guest.
The note, requesting that anyone breastfeeding at the wedding would use the bathroom to feed their babies, didn’t go down well with many mums online.
“I wouldn’t attend. Why would I want to be around people who don’t respect me or my family?” wrote one on Facebook
“What kind of ‘friend’ expects you to feed your baby literally within 5 feet of others who are defecating?!?” commented another.
Shelby said that the controversy has overshadowed her first few weeks of marriage.
“It’s putting a dark cloud on the day, on the memories,” she told Texas news station WFAA.
She explained why she and her husband Garrett decided on the policy.
“We had photography and we have videography there too, so we didn’t want anything to be not private,” she said.
There was also an option for breastfeeding mums to use an office space in another part of the venue if they objected to using the bathroom, she said.
“We did have a ‘Plan B,’ but nobody asked, and nobody said that ‘Plan A’ was a problem.”
Bride Shelby Platter.
The guest who shared the note online, Ceara LaFrance, ended up leaving her children at home for the wedding and so never had to breastfeed there.
Shelby said she wishes she had spoken to her first.
“I know it’s an important issue and that’s fine. I’m all for breastfeeding.
“She had three months to contact us. She should have done that. She should have said, ‘Hey look, you know, I don’t feel like this is right.'”
Ceara’s husband was the best man at the wedding – he and the groom had been friends for over ten years.
“That’s not how friends treat friends,” said Shelby.
“How would she feel if somebody did that to her? Blasted her and her newlywed husband all over the Internet and the news? It hurts.”
The image that was shared with the note on Facebook.
Shelby believes Ceara used the incident to push her own agenda.
“It wasn’t her day. It’s not anybody else’s day but the bride and groom’s,” she said.
“When you spend as much money as we did for our day, you expect it to go the way that you wish.”
