We were engaged for a solid two days before my husband brought up the topic of a “paper marriage”. I LOVE weddings + always looked forward to mine with my husband so you can imagine my mixed emotions when the topic was proposed! I had so many (irrational) thoughts…”What will people think?” “Does that negate the point of a real wedding?” “Does this mean he doesn’t WANT a real wedding?!” It all felt so dirty to me!
For anyone reading who may not already be a WAF or anyone who is non-mil, let me explain. In many instances, being married is incredibly convenient in the military. On the flip-side, the military is very black + white with relationships, therefore, if there is not a legal document stating that the two of you are married, the military will not do anything for you. This includes the very expensive + often-times inconvenient PCS’s (permanent change of station). Many couples in the military will essentially go + elope weeks/months/years before they have an actual wedding ceremony. This way, the spouse can be on the orders + they will be included in the military moves + have the ability to benefit from Spouse Priority Preference. This also affects housing options which, depending on if you choose on base or off – can be a huge game changer.
Want to know more about living on base?
I can remember one night while I while visiting my then fiancé at Vance AFB, sitting around a bonfire with a few other Air Force couples, as each couple went around the circle listing their legal marriage date + then their actual wedding date. Some hadn’t even had a wedding ceremony yet + we just living as “fiancé’s” until their ceremony.
This was a huge breakthrough for me!
While my family had similar reservations as I did, this was the moment when I realized that I was stepping into life with a new family. A family of people that understood that we have to do things a little differently to make things work. This doesn’t necessarily make sense for all Air Force couples, but for my husband + I- it did.
This step was necessary for us because I was about to head into my last semester of college at Arkansas in the fall, his RNLD (Report No Later Date) was the beginning of October, + our wedding was the end of November. We were gifted quite a bit of furniture from family + therefore had a hefty amount that needed to be moved the 2,000 miles from AR to WA. The military allows only one Home of Record (HOR) move, a move from a place that isn’t necessarily near the current duty station (State of Legal Residence: SLR) aka your home before you joined the military. To sum all that up, without us getting “paper married” , I would not have been on my husbands orders + my goods would not have been moved.
Similar to how people share about their wedding day, now many of us share about our legal marriage day as well! We all do it differently. Some bring along their closest family members. Some doing it completely on their own. My husband + I were so lucky that his moms best friend was a local county judge + was able to officiate our legal marriage. He was headed off to training at Altus which would have only been a 6 hour drive for him but with that on top of my plans to take 18 hours of classes to finish my last semester of college- it made more sense for us to do our legal marriage before he left for Altus. My dads only request to us was that we finished premarital counseling beforehand since it still is a huge decision….you can bet your bottom dollar that we finished what usually takes 8 weekends in just 2:) We were only a little excited!! We had spent the weekend at a music festival with friends from pilot training in Little Rock, AR.
We had made the decision to not tell many people, just some family + friends…so here ya go internet!
We drove the three hours from LR straight to the judges house. It was just the two of us, the judge, + her two boys. She read Indian proverbs + served us cake + champagne to celebrate. It was hysterical, simple, + one of our favorite stories. Six months later we had our official wedding ceremony!
As I was growing up, I tried not to pre-plan my wedding day as I wanted my future husband to be a big part of the planning. But I did dream about what my life would look like one day. The Air Force has one thousand percent changed every inch of what I thought my life would turn out like…and it’s memories like these that taught me to love being a WAF:)
Xo, Jen
