Ariana was a year old, wearing a white satin dress that matched her mother's, when she walked down the aisle as the flower girl at her parents' wedding.
She was cranky that day but the pictures show her smiling between her happy mother and father.
Ariana is part of a growing number of children born to unmarried parents in committed relationships who don't rush to the altar when they are expecting.
"We were both kind of in shock at first," says Carrie Grenier, Ariana's mother, about the day she and Justin learned they were going to have a child. "We'd been together at that point for three years, we were pretty excited and we knew we were going to stay together."
Grenier believes more parents aren't rushing to get married before their children are born because weddings are so expensive and a lot of people want more than a quickie ceremony at city hall.
She wanted to marry Justin Grenier before they had more children and although the ceremony wasn't essential to him, he agreed.
"He said, `I plan on staying with you the rest of my life anyway. If you need a piece of paper, fine,'" Grenier says.
The separation of marriage and childbirth is a fairly recent phenomenon, and there have been few studies on why couples are choosing to delay marriage, says Alan Mirabelli, executive associate at the Vanier Institute of the Family.
Before, expecting couples would rush to formalize their commitment prior to when their baby was due and delivered into the stigma of being born out of wedlock.
Now, Mirabelli thinks the notion of marrying first doesn't enter many couples' minds.
"They're people who have made a commitment to each other, as far as they're concerned. They may be ambivalent about the ceremony," Mirabelli says.
Mandy McEwen is the kind of parent Mirabelli is talking about. She is expecting her second child with her partner Trevor Shenk and they plan to marry in a few years. When she got pregnant with their first baby, the couple felt they hadn't been dating long enough to get married. Three years later, they are still together. Wanting to have children close in age, they decided to have their second child now and postpone the wedding.
"Do we wait to get married or do we wait to have kids, knowing that we're going to be together for the rest of our lives, regardless of a marriage certificate?" says McEwen.
Grenier notes that although her family was surprised by her pregnancy, they didn't pressure her to get married before Ariana arrived.
"Our parents were, of course, shocked at first but then they were happy for us," Grenier says. "Once you're married and you're going to have kids, it's, `Oh, that's terrific!' When you're not married, it's a few days before `Oh, that's terrific!'"
McEwen's partner Trevor had a harder time telling his more religious family about their first pregnancy. But the new grandparents were excited once the child was born and have been more accepting of the second pregnancy.
"This time around, they were fine because we've been together for so long. With (the first pregnancy), I think they were shocked and disappointed," says McEwen.
Mirabelli says this new family trend isn't necessarily bad for the children. A marriage certificate does not make better parents – what children need are parents who love them and give them consistent care, he says.
"In the end, what really does have an outcome on children is the nature of the commitment the parents make over time," says Mirabelli.
By Jennifer O'Meara Special to the Star
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