What do I do? (Fiancé's work possibly clashing with wedding date?)

jojobobo88

My fiancé and I agreed on a wedding date of October 19th of this year. We have almost everything planned out and my dress is ordered, and we're having it in my uncle's back yard by a lake. We are 5 1/2 months away from the date, and now my world has been rocked upside down, all thanks to his place of employment.

He works for NASA, long story short, and is what they call a "lead radar operator." If NASA has a launch mission from the base here, he is 100% required to be present at work, no matter the situation. He can not by any means call out the day of our wedding even despite having leave approved for two weeks including our wedding date. I chose October 19th because it is just barely the tail end of launch season for his base and they usually don't do launches in October (usually from mid-October to March they don't do launches). 

He received an e-mail from work this week basically saying a launch they had planned for either this month or next month had been postponed to no earlier than September. This presents a problem for us, because they can easily throw the launch on our wedding date. Some of you are probably thinking "move the date then." The only problem with doing this is that I wanted October because once November hits, it starts getting cold (we live in eastern Virginia). Our only other option is August, if we still want the free venue (which considering my fiancé is rather frugal, it's his preference). We did manage to agree on a "replacement date" in case NASA takes our original from us (November 2nd), but that presents a bit of a problem in sending out invitations, renting tables/chairs, getting food, and quite a few other things.

Does anyone have a possible solution to my problem? If I hadn't just ordered my dress a week and a half ago, I'd be going with him to the courthouse and just doing something small there. But I really don't want to do that and the thought of doing it really upsets me. We're in a really small town and not religious at all so we can't exactly run to a church and go get married, and trying to rent out a hall or a hotel or something wouldn't really work out.

Help...please?

kerbohl

I would keep your date as it is, because you have no assurance that they are going to have the launch on your wedding date.  When you do know that it is indeed on your wedding date, having the backup date of November 2nd is a good idea, but you might not even need it.  Until then, this is just looming over your head and causing you stress, and you don't even know for sure yet if this is going to be an issue.  It sucks that this happened, but surely your FI knew that this would be a possibility?  So there really isn't much you can do know, until you know for sure the date of the launch.  I really hope for your sake they do it earlier! 

VarunaTT

I would move to a date that I knew would work no matter what, so the August date (if I'm reading this right). People go to weddings in all seasons, it's not that big of a deal. I think it would save me stress knowing my date was secure, NMW.

TheMrsC23

I'd move the date if I were you.

I was married in early Nov and I live in the midwest.  It was in the low 50's on the day I was married and it really wasn't that bad at all.  

Wzz

You should also start looking into wedding insurance and trip insurance, in case you can find a policy that covers cancellations due to his sort of work.