Planning a Wedding with a Veteran
My husband served 23 years in the United States Marine Corps and retired as a Master Sergeant. I knew about the veteran world as I had been a veteran advocate for 7 years and an active-duty spouse in my previous marriage. We both knew that planning a wedding would challenge us and create stressors that were more than likely going to trigger his PTSD. We decided to plan the wedding on our property as we have 5 wooded acres and thought “this will be a great idea, an affordable county wedding!”
What we didn't consider is that now we have to do all the work to create a venue and make my creative dream come to life. This is definitely how my husband learned he hates Pinterest! All my crafts and projects for four months drove him crazy. From hanging lights to stapling fake flowers to a tree to make my flower tree, we learned we had committed to quite a difficult and stressful task.
Neither of us had a wedding with our families in our previous marriages so we wanted to make it a perfect event. As we got closer to the date, we asked ourselves why we didn't just go to the Bahamas and elope! The stress of planning and creating our vision was getting old. Thank god we planned it in 4 months because I don't think he would have lasted a year with all the wedding talk and events.
Our 1st event was our engagement ride. Since we are always riding the Harley with our local veteran biker community we thought it would be fun to do an Engagement Motorcycle Run. We had games and prizes at the bars I have worked at and it was perfect. Next was the bridal shower where my husband did a bridal brunch for us girls and our moms at our house. He and his best man set up a waffle and omelet bar and cooked for us.
Then came the big day. The day of, I lost my photographer to a family emergency, my maid of honor to a bad falling out, and my soon-to-be husband woke up with a fever of 100.1. With so much to do and very little time, I quarantined Chris off in the bedroom, shoved him full of meds, and got to work with his best man and my uncle. Our moms jumped in the kitchen in my husband's place, being that was definitely off the table now!
Guests started to arrive and I was in the kitchen making a Charcuterie board; no makeup, no bra, and certainly not looking like a bride. My poor guests were subjected to Florida’s July heat and humidity, while we tried to get it together. I managed to break my soon-to-be husband's fever and got him down the aisle only an hour behind schedule.
The ceremony was perfect despite all of us looking like we went swimming in our clothes from the sweat. My guest thought I was wiping my husband's tears and nose but it was just the sweat running down his face! Besides the heat, which you just can't escape in Florida, it was a perfect wedding. It puts things in perspective, no matter how crazy life gets or how much it feels like things are not going to plan, as long as you have your best friend by your side, you can conquer anything!
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