Military Wedding Dilemma

I think this is super common among the military. Not strange at all.

Also do you have to say vows at a courthouse wedding? If so, would it be weird to use basic ones there and save my written personalized vows for the actual ceremony? I just dont want the ones ive written spilling out my heart wasted on a wedding that isnt the wedding that I actually want. I mean I want it. I want us to be together. I just wish that time and money and health allowed for us to have the one we've been planning for right now.

View Quoted Comment Would it br weird to save my personalized written vows for what i would call our real wedding and just say the basic ones for the courthouse one? See my other comment for more info and also thank you for replying!

View Quoted Comment Totally up to you! But I think it's totally fine.

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much for the input! This all makes me so nervous and i feel like you only get married once but doing it this way feels like getting married twice and its all a really confusing feeling internally I guess. Its just not what i planned or expected which is fine I just dont know how to go about it

This is super common for military, but I also encourage you to not hid this from family. Considering your health problems, and the chance your fiance can be deployed at any time, you may need their support. We are in a similar boat. My fh will be deployed shortly after we are married. There really wasn't a race to the alter until this came out and he recieved orders for a new duty station. A courthouse wedding was out of the question for us because this is how his first marriage started. Of course, I had to be different haha. Anyway, if you really want more of a wedding feel...you have options for right now besides that. Many people invite about 20 guests, their closest people, and get married by an officiant at a local park or lake. They then may just go grab pizza and beer together and pick up the tab. This tab is may $200 verses thousands and thousands of dollars. This may be a good alternative to your solution. Then perhaps have a reception and vow renewal in a few years.

It wouldn't be weird, but you need to be honest with your loved ones that our are already legally married. It would be wrong to lie to everyone you love.

I don't think it's weird at all, especially in your military-related situation, to have a civil/courthouse wedding and then a celebration later. However, I ALWAYS think it's wrong to lie to people about it. Also, for anyone you know who is even slightly familiar with the military, they are going to know you must be married if you move to military housing and/or have other family benefits. I've been on this forum for a while and trying to keep a marriage a "secret" pretty much never works and when people find out about it their reactions range from deep hurt to all-out anger (NOT about the marriage, about the LYING). Just be honest, you have legitimate reasons for getting married as soon as possible, so do that, tell your loved ones, and let them know your plans for a more public celebration as soon as you can make it happen. However, you can only "get married" once (unless you get divorced in between two weddings) so whatever you do after that is a vow renewal or celebration of marriage, etc. People will come to those and happily celebrate with you. Good luck! And, thank you for your partner's service and your support of that service!

If you were living on base with your husband, your friends and family would know you are married. It's fine to elope and have a reception later or vow renewal, but I wouldn't lie.

Don’t lie to them. It is very not weird for
military couples to have courthouse weddings on the military timeline and throw the big party later on. People get it. They’ll still be excited to celebrate with you later even though you’re already legally married.

Vows have to be exchanged for a legal wedding, but standard repeat after me vows work just fine. You can do anything you want for vows in your big celebration as you don’t need to worry about any technicalities for legality.

Agree with everyone encouraging you not to lie to your guests.


A good friend in the military eloped and then had a full shin dig later. Everyone knew they were already married, but she still wore a wedding dress and they read vows to each other. It didn’t feel any less special to the guests knowing they were already married.

I am currently going through a similar situation. My FH is also in the military and we are getting married at the courthouse about a month and a half before our actual wedding day! I've let all of our guest know already, and now I'm excited for both days! I do understand the stress of it all believe me. It wasn't my original plan to elope either, but elopement or a big wedding ceremony I'm still marrying my best friend!

Side note: If your fiance hasn't already, I would have him talk to housing on base because he might be able to apply for housing now, so the process goes by faster. My fiance is in the marines, and they are letting him apply now (even before we have our marriage license) and then placing the application on hold until we get the marriage certificate. Once they get the certificate they will give us the keys to our new home!

- My FH and I are both Military. if you don't want to do a courthouse marriage you don't have too. there are churches on base, not sure how religious you are. Once you get your paperwork signed you can take it to the court on your own or allow the officiant to do it. you are able to get it rushed at the court house since the person in the military that will be updating you marriage will need the Certificate certified and your and your husband both present at the time. Well at least for the Airforce that's how it is. A lot of people get married during visitors week at boot camp or at tech school. its very common. it wont take long to get the systems update and once he receives his order for his follow on it will have on there that he is traveling with a dependent. so it should all be fine, then just have the wedding you want when you are up for it and ready

View Quoted Comment I guess I am just anxious about my friends and stuff judging me and being like "well why do you need two weddings?" Or whatever. And its just giving me so much anxiety. I still want our actual wedding to be small and stuff. Idk i feel like all of this makes me sound like over priveledged or something but the truth is I never want for anything. I never ask for anything. I was the kid who told their parents that I didn't need/want anything for my birthday or Christmas because I just didn't care for material items unless it was something that I actually needed and I was having trouble obtaining it on my own. And this is the one thing in life that I want and I just want it to be as close to perfect as it can be and i dont want it to be weird for anyone and its already hard bc we are gay and our families dont accept us.

View Quoted Comment It's more hidden from our family because we are gay and they dont accept us. And i need them to have more time to think over everything in the engagement stage to decide how they are going to treat us bc it is honestly a coin toss with them. And as for my health problems, i wouldnt want to do the "real" wedding until after I have been treated because my disorder caused excessive weight gain that dieting and working out will not get rid of and it wont reverse until I get the source of the problem removed and it has just caused other issues that make me so uncomfortable in my own skin. And i want to love my wedding pictures... Not feel like an ogre 😞

View Quoted Comment I guess you're right. That just still feels weird. Bc I want to wear my engagement ring and still feel well engaged. Not get proposed to and get married two months later at a courthouse and not be able to enjoy the whole engagement stage. Or have someone be like "why are you still wearing your engagement ring every day arent you married?" I mean I dont even want wedding bands until the "real" wedding.

View Quoted Comment The reason I dont want to tell people is bc I want to feel like I am in the engagement stage longer. Not get proposed to and two months later get courthouse married and whatever. I want to wear my engagement ring until the "real" wedding. I want to enjoy the "their my fiance" and planning all the prewedding things that are fun that i feel like would be weird if youre already married. Like having a bachelorette party. And i wouldnt be able to do that before a courthouse wedding bc all of my friends live on the other side of the country and I just cant afford and neither can they to meet up any time soon. But mostly bc I want to be engaged longer than two months or whatever. The courthouse wedding would of course be bc we love each other and intend to get married but mostly bc the military says we have to to live together. If we could live together and the military would treat me as a real human that matters when issues come up with my partner without us being married then we would just wait and go with our original plan but thats just not how they work which I HATE but thats life I guess.

I would suggest getting married, telling your friends and family, but having a celebration of marriage/vow renewal when you can afford it. Your loved ones should understand the situation. Personally, I could never imagine lying to my loved ones like that. I could never imagine pretending to not be married when I really am. What if something happened to you or him between August and October/November? Do you want your family to find out because of a medical emergency that you are really married. To me, marriage is important, and not something you should lie about. I just think it would be difficult to live a lie for 3 months or so, and I don't know why you would want to lie to people you care about. Good luck!

View Quoted Comment Well my family doesnt accept us so theyre really put of the picture. And honestly I worded this wrong. What I really mean is more of im not going to post it up on social media and air out my laundry for everyone. I wont lie if anyone asks but i dont necessarily want to tell everyone. My close friends will know I mean im asking them for advice on everything right now anyways. I mean more for like my... Acquaintance type friends? The ones I wouldnt invite to a wedding anyways but theyre on my social media. Those type of people.