wedding planning advice

[Green_Fairy]

so...here's the thing. my mum has cancer and might not be long for this earth. i'm engaged. fiance's due back from iraq in either november or december. we have no idea which. no one has any idea when he'll be back. i was planning a wedding for next spring but...well, my mum might not be around then.
what the hell am i going to do? i want her there but how can i plan a wedding when i'm going to tell people "well, it's going to be anywhere between november first and new year's."?

[iradney]

Well, what you could do, is hold a small ceremony with just your parents and his, when he gets back. Then hold another one later (if you want) with all your friends and other family members...
It's only a suggestion, you may very well get far better ones from the other members here...

[Jester]

fiance's due back from iraq in either november or december.

i want her there but how can i plan a wedding when i'm going to tell people "well, it's going to be anywhere between november first and new year's."?

Well, if he is definitely going to be back at some point in December, it seems reasonable to plan a wedding for January. That is the soonest time when he will definitely be back and you can hold the wedding, as far as I can see. Right?

[trailerparkmedic]

You could do a small ceremony when he's home on leave (immediate family, courthouse or cool local place, maybe nice dinner at resturant?) and then plan for a big ceremony later (I've seen lots of people do stuff on 1 year anniversaries). That was my original plan with the ex. Not sure about your branch but the Army gave us 3 weeks notice on his leave which might be enough time to get everyone in for a weekend.

[Exaspera]

I think that the longer you delay, the less well your Mom will feel, and the less she will be able to enjoy the ceremony to it's fullest.

I agree with the small wedding for family only, then a reception when your sweetie comes back.

Great site for like this: Etiquette Hell.com. They have very friendly advice forums.

[MaggieTheCat]

Getting married at a courthouse by a justice of the peace is very simple, fast, and inexpensive. In Texas, there is a 3 days waiting period from the time you get your marriage license to when you can hold the actual ceremony, but we even got that waived since we had taken a "marriage training" class earlier in the year. Other than getting the license, just call up a justice of the peace in your area and ask if and when he/she does marriages. Ours took all of about 20 o 25 minutes and cost I think about $100, plus like $7 for the marriage license. Honestly it was so simple and so little stress, with everything else going on in your life between mom being sick and fiance being away and who knows what else, it will probably save you loads and loads of headaches compared to if you planned a great big wedding and reception.

I'd say have a small ceremony as soon as you can, whenever you know your fiance will be home...you can still plan the big she-bang for next spring or whenever, if you want to...you might be able to renew your vows or something, or just have a nice big reception with all of your friends and family who didn't come to the actual ceremony.

[trailerparkmedic]

Maggie, did you go to one of those 8 hour free classes? If so, was it mind numbingly dull or was it tolerable? I was thinking about going to save the money on the marriage license but I'm not sure if its worth $60.

Green Fairy, most states will wave timeframes for getting married if you're active duty.

[MaggieTheCat]

I'm pretty sure the one we went to was free, yeah. It was supposed to be 8 hours but in reality was more like 5 or 6, and that was with an hour lunch break. It seemed like the instructor did this class pretty often and had figured out how to condense it into less time without losing too much content. We still covered most of the booklet he gave us.

It was fairly mind-numbing for my husband and I, mostly because a lot of it was stuff that seemed like common sense to us. We went over stuff like, "Who do you talk to first when you're upset at your SO? Your mother, your friend, or your SO?" and "Here is a list of chores that are going to need to be done when you two are living together. Who is going to do them? (stuff like laundry, cooking, cleaning, taking out the garbage, taking care of children/pets, organizing financials and paying bills, etc.)" I know we went over some things that were fairly interesting but for the most part it was kind of "duh" stuff to us. But there were a lot of kids in the class, in their late teens or early 20s, and I think the class was largely aimed at them, and also at couples who weren't living together yet (husband and I were already living together before we took the class, so the activity about who's going to do what chores was a no-brainer.) My husband and I were by far the oldest couple, at 25 and 27.

Was it worth it? Eh, I'd say it was, for $60, and also so we didn't have to wait to get married after we got our license. We ended up saying one week a few months after the class, "Let's get married this weekend!", got our license on a Thursday or Friday and got married on the following Saturday, so waiving the 72-hour wait period worked in our favor. The class wasn't that bad, and it was nice that we got to spend the whole time together and not have to interact with anyone else. The biggest complaint we had was that we took it in...like...June, I think, and it was in an upstairs room of a church with no AC (ours was not a religious class, but it was still at a church anyway, just for the record.) It was freaking HOT. We did have a fan, but still, there were 12 or 14 of us (not including the instructor) in this little room on a bright sunny Texas summer day so...yeah.

[ArcticChicken]

You could always have a small civil ceremony for immediate family, then have a larger ceremony for everyone later.

It's what my dad did, he and his wife got legally married in their living room with family, but they exchanged vows in a lovely ceremony the next day at a hotel by a lake, it was gorgeous.

There's no reason you can't do the same thing, just with more time between the two.

[BookstoreEscapee]

My friend's fiance was in the reserves, and they were planning to get married in November of 2002; after September 11 happened, they got married in November of '01, just in case he ended up being deployed (he wasn't, luckily). Civil ceremony, just immediate family. Very few people knew they were actually married, and they had the church ceremony and reception in '02, as planned.

[Solumina]

I agree with the small wedding and large event farther off. From experience I can tell you that a small family thing can quickly snowball into a rather large and involved event so my advice to you is to not make it a mini-wedding with a larger one in the near future that will include everyone, have a small wedding and plan a large renewal farther out. A justice of the piece is a great option but there are also a lot of small chapels that should be able to nicely accommodate you. I'm sure that you want your mom to be able to really see you as a bride so go ahead and go all out with your wedding dress, hair, and makeup. Have your something borrowed, something blue, something old, and something new. Just know that really all that will matter to her is seeing you as you make a promise to spend the rest of your life with the man you love.

[Green_Fairy]

this is all great advice. we would totally go ahead with a JotP marriage, but he did that for his first one and he wants an actual wedding now. my original plan was to have a small wedding when he got back with just family and a few close friends, and then have a reception in the spring when the weather's nicer.
my biggest issue tho is making reservations. most places have a non-refundable deposit and need a reservation months out. lol i had an idea a few days ago to see if we could shut down this coffee house for an hour or so for the small ceremony because we first met there. but i dunno.
flowers also have issues with wilting, so if i spend $100 on flowers and he's not back in time, i'm out that $100.
i also don't want to get married too close to christmas cuz...well, i just don't wanna.
ugh. i wish i could just call up the navy and be all "hey! send The Boy home so i can marry him before my mum dies! then you can have him back."

[Elspeth]

on the flower front, you could use silk flowers. We did for our wedding and looked really nice. Maybe a community center to have the wedding and receiption? That is where we had ours. Had a nice building and came with tables. It wasn't too expensive if I remember right.

[Jester]

Well then have the small wedding with your mom in someone's yard, a friend or a relative. Do it in January, to make everything work. And for the florist, once you know your boy's time table, contact one or all of them immediately. You can have a "real wedding" without it being the whole elaborate affair. A compromise between what he wants and what is realistic and feasible with your mother's timetable. And then a larger to do later on.

If he is not willing to compromise like that for your mother, perhaps you should question whether this is someone you want to spend the rest of your life with....

[trailerparkmedic]

we would totally go ahead with a JotP marriage, but he did that for his first one and he wants an actual wedding now.

Tell him in plain words "I am planning XXXX (small wedding, JotP, marriage at the circus, whatever) when you first get home for my mother and we will have the big to do later, which you can help plan if you want." This is obviously a non-negotiable point for you so he needs to know it is non-negotiable.

When looking for places, don't be afraid to pull the "fiance is deployed right now" and the "my mom has cancer" cards. I know you wouldn't be sucky, but asking for some sympathy will help you get strings pulled.