A whole new world....

DisneyDream88

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jun 7, 2011
My fiancee is in the Army and is going off to training this summer. I am trying to plan our Disney wedding for next summer, but we're not sure where he will be as of December yet :/ I am not from a military family at all so this is all new to me. Any advice from military wives/fiancees? I am so proud of what he wants to do. His father is in Afghanistan right now on deployment. I'm just so afraid I'm going to be overwhelmed within the next month or so with him leaving.
 
Honestly? It's going to be very hard to plan that kind of wedding while in the military. Impossible? No. Just very very hard. Be prepared for set backs and plans changing with little to no notice.

DH and I moved up our wedding date, and had 4 months to plan once he enlisted. We picked our date only because we knew for sure he would be home. We picked December 30th, because it fell during the holiday break he had from Tech School. I wanted a big, outdoor, autumn wedding but had to give up that dream because of the AF.

The military is constantly changing. They can tell you the plan is one thing, and the next day it's something else, etc. Nothing is ever "for sure" or "guaranteed." You have to just be ready for not knowing anything and going with it. Because of this, many military couples opt for either small ceremonies in between trainging dates/during already planned leave, or just have a JOP ceremony on whatever day they can work out.
 
Ditto to everything Matt'sPrincess said. I've found planning large events or trips to be incredibly difficult in the military world. We ended up having a small ceremony on the beach before he deployed, and doing a big wedding the following year when we were pretty sure that he'd be able to get leave.

We're currently trying to plan a trip to Disney with both sides of our family for Thanksgiving, and everyone has plane tickets already besides us. My MIL keeps bugging us to buy tickets, but she just doesn't understand what can come up. And what happened? We just found out yesterday that the Bn is planning their Marine Corps Birthday Ball for the day we'd be flying out, so I don't know if he'll be able to get leave that day now. Thank goodness we didn't book tickets yet!!

Things can be done, but you may have to revise your original plans, which can be frustrating. The majority of my friends did either JOP or small ceremonies, and most had a large ceremony later. Good luck planning!
 
I have to agree with both of the previous posters, it is going t be very difficult to plan anything like a Disney Wedding.

Dh was luckily only in the Reserves when we got married, that makes planning a little bit easier, but not much. He could get orders for active duty at any time. We got married in Dec 2001, and we were quite worried with it being such a short time after 9/11, but we were able to go ahead with our plans. We were married a week after their annual Military Ball.

We will celebrate our 10th Anniversary this year and have planned a big trip to Disney, but we are on alert for possible active orders between Dec 2011 and Feb 2012.

You have to learn to plan around the Army, not the other way around. You will eventually get used to it. It is not always the easiest lifestyle.

Suzanne
 


Learn to live by the "the only constant is change" thought!
We did a Disney wedding, but it was TINY, and pre-deployment. Now that he is home "for good" (we are a guard family) we will be having the big wedding at our church this month. We have had to change the date of the at home wedding 3 times due to mandatory reporting though!
 

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