Melissa White was eight months pregnant, with a baby due five weeks later. She was slated to be a bridesmaid in her friend Bernadette Beahan’s wedding. However, true to Murphy’s law, nothing ever goes as planned on your wedding day.

On the morning of her wedding, Beahan got the call from Melissa that she had just gone into labor five weeks early. “When she called me, I think we both sat on the phone crying to each other for five minutes,” Beahan told The Motherish. “I had a lot of joy and happiness for her and her partner, but … it was sad she couldn’t be there getting ready with us.” Melissa gave birth to her son, Hunter, less than an hour later. It was at this point that Beahan faced a hard choice: wedding prep or friend’s new baby? She was supposed to get ready for her own ceremony, but she didn’t want to miss her friend’s occasion, either.

So, despite her mixed feelings, she ultimately decided to put her white dress on and she then rounded up the other bridesmaids and the wedding photographer and headed to the hospital for an impromptu photo shoot. “[Bernadette] phoned me … a few hours before I was due to begin photographing to tell me the news,” photographer Talitha Rice told Mashable. “When she asked if it would be possible to move the schedule to allow a visit to the hospital, I of course said yes and helped her shuffle things around.” “I always tell couples, ‘There are no rules on your wedding day and you should do whatever you like’,” Rice said. “Bernadette certainly did.”