A message from my inbox in June: “Nothing fits me, and the one thing that fits does not open.” If you have a summer wedding coming and a baby on you, that sentence is probably somewhere in your week. The dress you were going to wear was bought for a body that did not need to feed anyone. Now you need a dress that gets you from the ceremony to the speeches with a feed or a pump in between, in heat, in front of people with cameras.

I have been the mama with the baby at a wedding more than once, and the first time I got it wrong. I wore a dress that zipped at the back and spent the reception in a toilet cubicle feeding a hot, cross baby while the speeches happened without me. By the third I had learned the rule that fixes all of it: the dress has to open at the front, and you have to be able to do it with one hand while holding a baby with the other. Everything else is detail.

These are the eight shapes that pass that test for a summer wedding, with what to wear under each so the opening is quick and quiet, and the colours I would reach for with a tired face. Several of them you may already own in a plainer version; a wrap dress is a wrap dress.

1. The wrap midi dress

The wedding dress for the whole feeding year. It ties at the side, so it fits at six weeks and six months; it opens at the front with no button; and the V neckline is kind to a chest that is bigger than it was. A midi length in a fluid fabric moves in the heat and covers the legs you are not ready to show.

Under it, a clip-down nursing tank in a colour close to the dress, so when you untie, there is a layer. Dusty blue, sage or soft rose for a summer wedding; navy if you want to feel safe. Ten more ways to wear a wrap dress if this becomes your dress.

2. The button-front midi dress

Buttons all the way down the front are the most honest nursing access there is. Undo three from the top for a feed; undo three from the bottom to dance. A shirt-dress shape in a crisp cotton or a soft linen reads as smart without trying, and a belt or a tie waist sits wherever you need it to today.

Pick a dark or a mid colour over white: navy, olive, a deep terracotta. White and a leaking newborn is a decision you make once.

3. The faux-wrap jersey dress

A fixed wrap neckline on a stretch jersey, with the crossover sewn so it never gapes. The two layers at the front pull aside for a feed and fall back into place on their own. It is the dress for the mama who does not trust a tie, and it packs into a bag without creasing.

A patterned jersey hides more than a plain one. A small floral or a soft stripe in summer colours, and nobody will see the mark on your shoulder.

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The Year Round Capsule

Two hundred nursing-friendly outfits from fifty-six pieces, fifty for every season, laid out and then worn. $29 once, yours to keep.

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4. The tiered maxi with a V neck

For the garden wedding and the long hot afternoon. A tiered cotton maxi is loose everywhere you need it to be, and a deep V or a buttoned bodice gives you the opening. The tiers move; the length means you can sit on the grass.

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Wear it with flat sandals and a small crossbody, and a soft cardigan for the evening. Eight nursing-friendly outfits built on wrap-style pieces show the shapes that keep working.

5. The shirt dress in linen

Less formal than the others and the most comfortable of all of them. A linen shirt dress in sand or navy, buttoned, with the sleeves rolled, is a daytime wedding in the countryside or a civil ceremony followed by lunch. It opens like a shirt, because it is one.

A slim belt turns it from relaxed to considered. Leave it off for the hottest part of the day and put it on for the photographs.

6. The slip dress with a cardigan or a light jacket

A bias-cut slip in a soft satin is the most elegant thing on this list and the one that seems impossible to feed in. It is not: a slip with adjustable straps slips down one shoulder over a strapless or a clip-down bra, and the cardigan or jacket over it is your cover. Midi length, in champagne, olive or deep rose.

Wear the bra you will actually feed in, not the one that looks nicest in the mirror. Six nursing-friendly outfits around one slip dress if you want the proof.

7. The two-piece: a wrap top and a midi skirt

Not a dress, and often better than one. A wrap top in a kind colour over a floaty midi skirt gives you full front access with nothing at the waist, and the two pieces come apart to become four other outfits after the wedding. Match them in tone (rose top, sand skirt) and it reads as one.

This is what I wear when I am not sure how my body will feel on the day, because the skirt waist is soft and the top ties wherever I am.

8. The empire-waist dress with a buttoned bodice

An empire waist sits under the chest and falls away from everything below it, which is exactly the shape a postpartum body wants in heat. With a bodice that buttons or a wrap top half, it opens at the front and the skirt never touches the middle.

Flat sandals, a small bag, your hair up, and a pashmina for the evening. Nobody at that wedding will know what you did at the table during the speeches, and that is the whole point.

What to wear under all of them

A clip-down nursing tank in a colour close to the dress, or a soft wireless nursing bra with a clip you have practised with one hand. Breast pads, and spares in the bag. A large soft scarf or a pashmina that is a cover if you want one, a shawl when the garden gets cold, and a blanket for the pram.

And flat shoes. You will be standing, swaying, walking a baby round the car park between courses. Heels will still be there next summer.

The wedding is not the problem, and your body is not the problem. The expectation that one specific dress bought for another body should work while you are feeding a human is the problem, and it is a design problem with an answer. A dress that opens at the front, a tank underneath, flat shoes, and you can be in the photographs and at the table and still be the one who feeds the baby. All three at once.

If you want to see these shapes on a body, including yours, the Year Round Capsule has the wrap dress and the button-front dress laid out and worn across all four seasons, and three pictures of you in them are on the house. If you are standing in a shop holding a dress and wondering whether you can feed in it, Will it feed will tell you from a screenshot, free. And if you want someone to pick the dress for you from what you already own, that is Anah inside the Atelier.

Go to the wedding. Feed the baby at the table. Dance in the dress that opens. The focus is on you, mama.