Everything to know when planning a military wedding

Military life is such a roller coaster. It brings so many good things, and hard moments, and lets be honest- a little bit of chaos. One of the hardest things is never knowing the exact schedule or leave dates and everything being subject to change at a moment’s notice. It can make planning a wedding so difficult.

In the midst of Army life, my husband and I decided to plan our wedding. An out of state wedding no less, in Washington, when we lived in Colorado. I still remember going to look at venues and asking about the refund policy if for some reason some “army” thing came up. One of the vendors looked at me and said “well he’s been in for 3 years, shouldn’t he know his schedule by now?”. My mother in law and I just looked at each other and laughed. 

Thankfully, we were able to plan our wedding 6 months in advance and it ended up being a wonderful day, but here are some things I wish I had known when planning.

 Plan around leave dates

Planning our date around summer block leave was one of the best thing we did. Because there are going to be so many soldiers off, block leave is planned at least 6 months in advance and generally the dates don’t change. Get those dates and use it to pick your wedding date. Keep track of how many days of leave you/your service member has to make sure you’ll have enough.

Be flexible about the day of the week

Chances are you’re not going to be able to book your venue a year or 18 months in advance. Weekend dates fill up fast, especially in the high season months. That’s okay! Fridays and Sundays work just as well as Saturdays. Even if it’s on a Tuesday, the people you really love and care about will still be there and will still have fun! Trust- as things get more expensive, weekday weddings have become more popular.

Another bonus of weekday weddings is more vendor availability and sometimes, things cost a little less. There can be lower minimums for hair and make up or florals. Venues often have different rates for weekdays vs weekends too.

Tell your/your service member’s chain of command

You have to make sure chain of command knows. If you’re not the service member, your significant other needs to make sure chain of command knows. And not in a one off kind of way- tell them as soon as your date is booked and then remind them frequently. More than you think you need to. If there’s good leadership, they may remember on their own; but if there isn’t, just because your wedding date is a priority to you two, doesn’t mean it is to them. Its okay to be annoying about it, you don’t want people to be “surprised”.

You have a shorter timeline- and that’s okay!

Don’t stress about the shorter planning timeline. Again, you probably won’t have a whole year to plan your wedding. Here’s a secret- you don’t need one. That standard planning timeline exists because a venue’s summer Saturday dates fill up fast. If you’re not super fixated on getting a “prime” date during high season, all the other stuff comes together quite quickly!

You can elope, and have the big wedding later

Its okay to get married before you get married. Wait, what? Yep you read that right. The military cares about significant others so much more once you’re actually married. It makes no sense, but that’s how it is. Plus a little extra BAH to put towards the wedding expense doesn’t hurt either. If its easier to make things legal before the official day, do it! It doesn’t have to be common knowledge or take away from your actual wedding day. And then you get to have 2 anniversaries too!

One of the only things I wish we had changed about our wedding experience is celebrating our legal marriage date (almost two years before our actual wedding day!) a little bit more. If you think you want to elope or have a micro wedding first and big wedding later, check out this post here!

There’s always going to be stress that comes with event planning, military life just adds an extra twist. Don’t forget that at the end of the day, it should be more about your marriage and being with the one you love than all the other stuff!