When Christina Torino-Benton’s 9-month-old daughter started crying in the middle of her wedding ceremony in Montreal, the bride had no problem lowering her gown to breastfeed.
“I tried for maybe two minutes to allow some family members to calm her down, but having missed her nap, and in that heat, it wasn’t going to happen,” Torino-Benton, 30, tells PEOPLE. “There was no question. I had to nurse, and I wasn’t hesitant about it at all.”
Lucky for Torino-Benton, her wedding dress was strapless. While she didn’t intentionally choose a style that allowed for easy breastfeeding, she says “it just happened to work out for us in the end!” She nursed Gemma for a few minutes and the infant fell asleep for the rest of the mass.
“This is something that has become so natural in my life that I didn’t even have to think about it,” Torino-Benton, from Montreal, says. “She needed me, so I was there.”
Wedding photographer Lana Nimmons took a shot of the sweet moment, which turned into one of Torino-Benton’s favorites from the day.
“When Lana sent me the photo I was SO happy she captured the moment,” she says. “It is very special to me.”
Torino-Benton decided to share the photo in a breastfeeding group on Facebook.
“I thought I would get a couple hundred likes on the breastfeeding group – I never imagined for a second it would go totally viral! It’s really incredible,” she says.
While Torino-Benton has seen some negative comments about her photo, she’s ignoring them and focusing on the supportive ones, like those from moms who shared photos from when they, too, breastfed during their weddings.
“The photos that are being shared are absolutely beautiful,” she says. “I love seeing them!”
“This has been a really incredible few days—I’m so proud of my photo—and I hope that when Gemma is older she will love it too,” Torino-Benton says. “My wedding was one of the most amazing days of my life, and I wouldn’t change a thing.”
This article originally appeared on People.com
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