When Karla Barry went into labour moments before walking down the aisle for best friend Katie Letton's wedding day, she had just one thought in her mind … don't upstage the bride!
So she kept her contractions quiet and carried on with her duties as maid of honour regardless, smiling through the ceremony and official photos.
Speaking to Mamamia, Karla explained that her biggest concern was that her waters would break during the ceremony.
"I felt a sigh of relief when I got to the end," she admitted.
Luckily, there was a midwife on hand to monitor Karla's progress – the mother of the bride. So when the contractions became more regular, Karla and her partner, Adam Hitchcock, were sent to hospital.
"My partner went up to Katie after the first dance and said, 'we have to go, Karla has been in labour all day!' She was like, 'what? Why didn't you tell me?'" she said.
"I cried as I still didn't want to leave [the wedding], even though my contractions were three minutes apart. As I was leaving, Katie gave me a massive hug and wished me luck - it was a pretty emotional moment."
Karla told the West Australian that at one point she was worried that the hospital were going to send her home and that she would have missed the end of the wedding for nothing.
But sure enough, the couple welcomed a baby boy, Xavier, the following morning.
Although she wasn't actually due for another week, Adam had predicted that the baby would arrive on the day of their friend's wedding.
"[Adam] picked that [Xavier] was going to arrive on the wedding day early on in my pregnancy, but I never really believed him because they often say most first babies are born late," Karla said.
"Before we left in the morning of to the wedding my fiancé said, 'I'm just going to pack the hospital bags in case!'"
Mother and baby are both doing well.
"He is the most content baby we could have asked for," said Karla. "We are very, very lucky."