Getting Married a year Before my Wedding

Makes complete sense to me. I know people who have gotten married earlier than their ceremony for health insurance, citizenship, and many other reasons. A home loan is right up there with good reasons that your family will understand. You can call one your legal marriage and the other the celebration of your marriage (or vow renewal, celebration of your union, anniversary party, etc. depending on what kind of event you are holding). Congrats to you and your FH on the home!

Is the VA home loan your only option? I know many couples who purchased and financed homes together before marriage and they were able to get a mortgage from a bank without any issue. I would exhaust some other options before changing your marriage plans if you are uncomfortable with marrying earlier just to secure a loan.

Couples do get unceremoniously married for all sorts of legal and liability reasons, so you absolutely have a legal marriage before your wedding if you want. To me it is less of an issue about what other people think and more about how you feel. If marrying early doesn't sit right with you, or you and your fiance have different expectations about keeping it secret, exhaust your other options first before going down that route.

If you get married now, you should definitely tell people. Hiding it is kinda sneaky. And you can call next year a vow renewal or a celebration or marriage

I think it’s a little odd to keep it a secret but to each their own. Do what’s best for the two of you!

My husband and I did this for the exact same reason! We already had our wedding booked for October 2, 2021, but wanted to buy a house using a va loan. It’s true that you have to be married. The terms of the va loan we got are incredible and so we got married on October 2, 2020 and closed on our home October 16! We are so glad we did it! We only had our parents and our sisters at our wedding, but it was an amazing day and I am so happy to be married already (we also would have had 20-month engagement with original date). We rented an Airbnb and had the priest come to the house and marry us and then had a catered dinner. We had a professional photographer for three hours. I got a different wedding gown and got my hair done. We were very open and told people ahead of time and afterwards. We are calling October 2, 2021 a vow renewal and celebration of our marriage. People still seem pretty excited to come to the party!

The 1st time I got married we did the legal marriage 7 months prior (for green card purposes). We never told anyone (not even the parents) because we didn’t see ourselves as married. That may not make sense to some ppl, but for us legal marriage and symbolic marriage were different & there are reasons you may want one and not the other, and we required both. That being said, I knew there were some ppl in our circle that WOULD NOT understand that & I didn’t feel like I was being sneaky in not telling ppl. I just didn’t see the point since I didn’t see myself as married. (No one knew until YEARS later & by that point nobody cared haha). That’s my story.


You know your circle and whether or not someone would be upset about you not telling, but to me that’s such an odd thing to be miffed about.