boot camp/wedding dilemma

brittany_naylor

My FI is going to boot camp for the air force next summer after we graduate college. He won't find out anything specific until late January 2012, but we've been planning our wedding for June 2012. I can't wait until January to start booking things because I don't want to risk not getting the venues we want. What should I do about planning our wedding & honeymoon around his departure for boot camp? I don't know how it works! Has anybody else experienced a similar situation before??

calindi

Congratulations on your engagement!  The best advice is to either do it well before he goes for training or wait until after when he's settled somewhere to plan.  As you're both quite young and this is a new adventure with the military, my suggestion would be to wait until he's done with training so you both can get acclimated to the military life & its challenges, rather than add that stress to your first year as a married couple (which is stressful enough).

When you do plan your wedding, be sure to get a military clause added to all your contracts.  This doesn't usually come standard, but I'd be skeptical of using any vendor who refused to add it.  Basically this is just a sentence or two that says that if for any reason his military commitment prevents him from attending the wedding as planned, that the vendors will transfer the deposit to a mutually agreeable date or refund all money (minus any expenses already incurred, at cost, like caterers & florists who may have already put in orders if he finds out only a few weeks before that he can't make it).

Good luck!

calindi

Oh, also, you should read up on OPSEC and PERSEC (just Google them, or some of the ladies on here have links in their siggys to the Military Brides FAQ page, which has more information, too).  You shouldn't post your first & last name anywhere publically online, and that includes your screen name.  It's just general guidelines that are good to know for anyone, but most especially as a soon-to-be military spouse!

TK doesn't let you delete screen names, but seeing as you're new and don't have many posts, it's not a huge deal.  Just create a new one using a different email address if you plan to continue posting (and you are certainly more than welcome to keep posting here - we have a good group of girls).

brittany_naylor

Thanks so much for the help. And when I first got a TK account my macbook automatically entered that as my screen name, so I just went with it. My roommate who is also on here warned me of that afterward, but it's too late now! Too bad you can't change it. Thanks again

Beachy730

You only have 5 posts, just stop posting on this one and create a new SN.  

aor9487

I agree with the others when they mentioned waiting to get settled. After Basic, he'll get sent to Tech School and the location/duration of that depends on his AFSC he gets assigned. After Tech School, he'll get orders to his first duty station. Upon reaching the first duty station, you go through FTAC for about a week or two, and then finally settle into the job, which is another whirlwind of experiences. My FI and I actually had Tech School for about 8 weeks after Basic, then we got sent to Japan. 

From experience, Supervisors usually don't let new Airmen go on leave until CDCs (upgrade training) is complete. This would pose a problem if you were planning everything to be in the states and you guys were stationed overseas. Just a heads up on a few of the obstacles you may run into! HTH and good luck! Let me know if you have any other questions.