Imagine this, you meet an amazing guy and find out he’s about to enter the Military. You’ve steered clear of military guys your whole adult life, but this guy is just different. It feels like you were meant to meet. *Meant to be* if you will. Fast forward 2.5 years and you get engaged. Between the euphoria and excitement, you realize that means you need to plan a wedding.
For me, it was almost an immediate overwhelm of “Oh man what the heck do we do now”. My husband is from Alaska. My family is all in New York….. How the heck was I supposed to plan a wedding taking into consideration everyone else? And what would be best for them? Not to mention the financial aspect of a wedding. A special little cherry on top of all that was my husband’s work schedule. Being on a 270 foot Coast Guard Cutter meant he was gone every 2 months for 2-3 months at a time. These deployments, although brief compared to some other branches, were still long enough to disrupt our lives and practically impossible to plan for the future. I spent the year following my engagement juggling ideas, tossing them around amongst family and seeing what might work to make everyone happy. My family even offered to pay for my husband’s family to come to my hometown because they knew that’s where I wanted to get married. My husband and I visited multiple venues and just could not figure out how we were going to make a wedding work for both sides of the family. At the time we were stationed in Portsmouth, VA. I was working as a bartender and zoo-keeping at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg. The idea of waiting even longer to get married just because of the needs of the service was not something I was keen on. I also knew we would be transferring in Summer of 2023 and we were renting at the time. Not to mention I wanted our wedding date to have some importance. I had originally wanted to be married on June 3rd, which was the day we met. All in all there were a lot of outside influences that were incredibly overwhelming and they had literally nothing to do with us and our relationship. Which became very frustrating for us because nothing we did was going to make everyone happy.
One day, I watched a video about this dog-friendly tiny house Airbnb in West Virginia. Out of curiosity, I looked to see if the anniversary of our engagement was available, and it was! I emailed my now husband, as he was deployed at the time, and pitched a crazy idea! I suggested we get married on a mountain and invite people close to us- if they can make it, they make it. If they can’t then oh well, no hard feelings. And when he agreed I got to planning!
Planning a wedding is tedious as it is, but planning a wedding out of state? With only two months to do it? Seemed practically impossible, but I knew if we didn’t do it now then we may never do it.
I wanted it to be as close to a real wedding as possible. So I got busy. I was making a “Guest List”, looking up places to stay that could hold a large amount of people, researching photographers, as well as State Laws and requirements for marriage. The list doesn’t really end. Once I found a photographer in the area, the rest kind of fell into place. I talked to her about the different locations I had searched and found to get married and she helped me narrow that down. I had wanted to make sure the location was accessible. So that for anyone who came they wouldn’t be expected to hike 3 miles to a ceremony spot. Long story long we only had 11 people at our wedding. All of that planning and making sure we were inclusive and thinking about everyone but ourselves…all to be told we didn’t do it right by some friends and family.
My husband and I both agree that our wedding was perfect. Between the location being a place called “Bear Rocks”, the wedding itself being spontaneous, the ceremony being on a mountain, and the weekend itself being an adventure- it really could not have been more us. And it ended up being exactly what we wanted. A weekend to celebrate our love and our life and commit to each other officially.
My point in telling you all of this is that, had we just done what we wanted, we would’ve probably gotten a smaller Airbnb for just us. (traditionally housing isn’t provided for weddings, but I tried to give motivation to attend covering any cost that anyone might acquire while attending our special day). We maybe would’ve had the ceremony at the top of a mountain that required a hike, and it’s possible we may have just gotten married by ourselves and not invited anyone. But looking back we tried our very best to make the best of both worlds- all while revolving our day around the ones we loved, and around a 2-month deployment schedule. ~insert crying melting face here~ Again long story long, planning a wedding while in the military comes with lots of challenges, but taking a step back looking at what is important to you and your partner and making your day your own is really going to bring the best memories down the road! None of this life is easy, but at the root of it all is the love you and your partner have for each other, and that is really all that you can count on down the road.
Meet Chandler
Chandler is a small-town girl from Central New York. Her whole life she swore against the military lifestyle. She didn’t want to be away from family, and then she met her husband. She and her husband have been together for 4.5 years and married for 1. They have a son named Foster with another on the way. Chandler met her husband in his hometown of Sitka, Alaska while she was working for a bear rescue up there. She had been a long-time adventurer traveling for her job as a zookeeper. Upon meeting her husband two weeks before he left for boot camp she realized nothing would ever be the same. They have endured many miles of distance and 4 years of “boat life”. She is very new to any military life and knows only what she has learned through her time constantly learning new things about the Coast Guard as well as other branches. In her spare time she enjoys finding new hiking trails, sipping a coffee in local coffee shops, DIY home projects and relaxing with her family.
