Teacher friends Sos!!!

Both FH and I are are teachers.. we plan on a few days in September.. then winter break/spring/summer for the honeymoon. I know not as fun.. but I mean so much time off it's our fault we want the fall wedding.

I would either get married before the school year starts, or wait. Your first year teaching can already be stressful, and personally I wouldn’t want to be doing wedding planning on top of that. I would also hesitate to take a large chunk of time off during your first year. It might not look the best to administration, and even set your students off on the wrong foot so early in the year. One of my teammates had to take a couple weeks off at the very beginning of the year for personal reasons, and she is still playing catch up.

Technically I am allowed to request my time off any time of the year but I would never want to in Sept/Oct and... it would probably be frowned upon. That time is all classroom management, establishing classroom environment and culture, etc. I am planning a late June wedding. I will technically need to take a day or two off because we go until July, but the last day with kiddos is before that!

Former WCPSS teacher here (10 years), so I know the district really well. You only get 10 sick days your first year, one per month. You also get up to five personal days, with a fraction of it earned each month. You pay $50 for the substitute if you take a personal day, and you won't be allowed to take sick days for the wedding. It sounds like your schedule is traditional and not year round, so regardless of when you decide to get married I would wait for the honeymoon either over Christmas or over spring break. Keep in mind if we have a lot of snow, spring break will be taken away because of the North Carolina calendar law. Since wake county is so big now, snow in one section could have the entire district offer a couple of days. You Might only get three days off the week of Thanksgiving, so that's not the greatest time to take the honeymoon unless you want a short honeymoon.

I would recommend a honeymoon over Christmas break, I would not attempt to take any time off for the honeymoon during the school year. You will have lots of extra training and support as a first-year teacher, and you will need everyone of your workdays to help.

Best of luck as you start teaching! I'm in private school now, but I did enjoy my years teaching and wake county.

When thinking about your timeline a quick note too, as someone who took the bar, your FH is going to be completely useless for wedding planning for the months of June and July at a minimum. Having a wedding immediately after that, or even a few months after that may add a lot of stress to him, and you as well. You will likely be shouldering a good deal of the emotional and actual work for those months for planning. The bar is an incredibly stressful time, just something to keep in mind.

ETA: also expensive. If your FH is doing a prep course (which I personally recommend) that is pretty expensive. Something to keep in mind as a lot of payments will be due at that time as well.

Thanks so much y'all, I really appreciate it!

FH reminded me last night that even though I will be off over winter break, he will just be starting a job seeing as he wont get bar results until mid september and will be starting his new job probably in october, so he can't really take a week off in december just because I am on break. So right now it looks like we will be trying to make July work! I know FH has the bar and I want him 100% focused on that, so I think we will try to get as much planned within the next few months before that crazy time starts for him so that he doesn't need to stress about wedding when he should be focused on bar stuff!

Also keep in mind your FH will likely not have any time to help plan while he is studying for the bar. Seems like it would make sense to wait till the following spring so you have time to get settled into teaching and he can focus on passing the bar. Bar exam -> wedding -> new teaching job sounds insanely stressful to me.

From my experience, the first year of teaching is typically a probationary period, so you’ve got to kind of tread carefully and follow the rules.
It’s difficult to take much time off when school is in session, especially as there are ample breaks to work around. Some schools bar you from taking personal time leading up to or immediately after holiday weekends/scheduled breaks, so be careful of that, and don’t blow all your sick days.
Honestly for your first year I would be cautious not to underestimate the work. Once you get going you might realize you don’t want to take off in the middle of a session.

I would definitely recommend saving the honeymoon for a break. There’s no necessary timeline regarding honeymoons, go when you can make it work. My wedding is in aug 2018 and we probably won’t honeymoon until late winter/early spring in 2019 just because it will be a little easier for our work schedules

I would highly recommend trying to avoid taking lots of days off during your first year of teaching. I’m in my 11th year and we’re getting married the first Saturday of spring break then going on our honeymoon at the beginning of summer break. I’ll take a couple of days off before the big day and I’m nervous enough about sub plans for that.

I am a first year teacher in NJ and we are only allowed 3 personal days a year, however we get off the second week in November. Your best bet with prices is probably thanksgiving break or spring break. I am getting married in Aug of 2019 but let me tell you your first year of teaching with lesson plans is stressful enough and then plus wedding planning, I would deff do the wedding maybe end of july and honeymoon right after!