Marriage after A school or C school?

[NavyWife2014]

I need a little help with figuring out when my Sailor and I should get married. He just graduated from boot camp on Friday and he is now stationed in Pensacola. I talked to him for a bit about when he wanted to get married, he said after his A school. His A school will be about six months long. I want us to have a real wedding. He wants to marry in a Catholic church. The thing is, to have a Catholic wedding, you have to have a certain amount of premarital counseling, etc. which will be hard since we don't live near one another. I also need to know what is required in order to get married. I want to be on his orders before marriage because with his rating meaning his location will be classified, I don't want to miss out on seeing him. He will have a C school as well. We don't have that information yet though. I would really like to get married right after his A school. I just don't know if he will be able to get leave between A school and C school.

Can anyone help me with this? Has anyone else gone through the same thing? Please give me some advice as I am stressing out already.

Btw, he is an E-3 if that makes any difference of any kind. I had been reading information from different sources and now I am confused.

[abuon18]

The only way to be sure you will be on his orders is to get married during his A school, not after. That means no "real" wedding as you call it & not Catholic Church wedding.

If you are set on the Catholic Church wedding I would go to your local church for information. A lot of times they will work with you on the pre Cana and stuff. Some do require a long time frame but some (like mine) have a weekend option. Even with him being in the Navy, you should be able to plan to get him home for a weekend. Especially while he's in A & C school-there will be hold times between classes and he'll usually be able to take leave then.

[NavyWife2014]

I didn't mean anything bad by "real" wedding. Sorry if it sounded funny. I meant to add more detail. All official marriages are real. LoL

[Knicky (Ship14Div351)]

Unless you want to be on his orders you needed to have gotten married before he went in the Navy or during his A school. If your church and his leave times don't work out together you can do a "court house" marriage and then try to plan for a "real" wedding after the fact. I know it's hard and it might even be frowned on by his church but really...that's the only way to make sure your on his orders.

[Anti M]

Because A school and C school are technically different sets of orders, even if he stays at the same training command, he probably can take leave after A school.  If you are very lucky, the C school will be long enough he will not have been issued follow on orders for after, so marrying after A school would work in that case.  Still, the other ladies are correct, the only way to insure you are on the orders is to marry before A school ends, with enough time for the detailer to get official notification he's cutting orders for a married sailor.

Marrying on leave requires nothing for the Navy, except the paperwork afterward.  Be sure you have your birth certificate, SSN and license.  Marrying during A school requires a form called a special request chit he needs to submit, and they'll require a class or some counseling.  One way for him to get his counseling in if he's sticking to the church marriage, is to have his hometown priest and the base chaplain coordinate it.... you'd take yours there, he could do his on base.  That isn't ideal, but they might go for it.  Although if he's going to be the rate I think he is, then the Navy might want to know he's marrying, even while on leave.  He should talk to his security officer once he gets into school

Quick question, will your sailor be getting guaranteed advancement to E-4 through his school contract?  Because if he is, then you have that much less to worry about in case he pulls overseas orders.  E-3 and below cannot take dependents overseas (usually), while an E-4 can.  

[NavyWife2014]

Yes, he will advance to an E-4 at the completion of A school. So even if I'm not on his orders in time, I have nothing to worry about?

[Anti M]

Oh, there's plenty to worry about.  You simply have less to worry about!

Orders are unaccompanied or accompanied.  Unaccompanied orders do not provide for a dependent's move.  Overseas orders are the most difficult, because you simply cannot go live in a foreign country without the proper authorizations.  If he is an E-4 and goes overseas unaccompanied, you might be able to join him later, after the waiver is granted and the screenings and paperwork is done.  The Navy won't change his orders, but his command can approve a change and allow the spouse to come too.

If he gets stateside unaccompanied orders, the biggest hurdle would be getting you moved.  It would come out of pocket.  Even when the Navy moves you, there are expenses, plus getting an apartment if you can't get directly into housing.  Start setting aside money for your new life, not simply for the wedding.  You have a lot of decisions in front of you, so keep thinking and talking things over with him, and ask for the experiences of other new wives.  

Good luck, and I hope this isn't too overwhelming.  Not knowing how it works can be the hardest part.  Hang in there!

[MrsS.ToBe]

im going through the same thing! my fiance is in A school at pensicola! and were trying to figure out when to get married! i want to be on his order before he finishes A school so were thinking that we will do it one weekend when i go to visit him in florida. i just dont want to take the chance of him going somewhere and me getting left behind. its hard though because im so clueless on everything and how things work

[NavyWife2014]

OMG, so I am not alone. He wants to marry right after his A school (also in Pensacola, Corry Station). His rating requires him to go to C school as well. We just don't have those details yet. I want to make sure that marrying right after A school is totally necessary first before I tell people. The original plan had been to marry next summer, but after what I found out about the orders (and with his rating, he is VERY likely to be sent overseas), I want to make sure we are married in time. The only reason I would rather wait for next summer is it gives more time to plan a wedding and save money. At this point, we are about 80% sure that we will marry after his A school though. I am so glad to know that there is someone else who has the same worries as me.

[TxNavyWife]

My husband and I were on the same page until we found out he would be stationed overseas. We ended up "publicly engaged" and married 5 weeks after we found out. Get that paper before he gets his orders else you'll be stuck at home trying to wade through the military's convoluted systems. I don't want to sound blunt or cold, it's just what I'm going through right at this moment. We only manged to get married 3 weeks after he got his orders. It was still totally worth it, but if we knew doing it sooner would make our lives this much easier we would have gone to the base chaplain that first weekend of A school.  The wedding can always still be planned how and when you wanted, just get yourselves legal :)

[TxNavyWife]

Speaking from extremely recent experience.... If you are planning to get married anyways, go to the court house and at least get legal now before he has any sort of duty orders. My husband got his orders 5 weeks into his 8 week A school. It will make your life so much easier to be on his orders when he gets them, otherwise you are facing a lot of waiting, significant time apart and hoop jumping to try to get command sponsorship (if he's stationed overseas). All the Navy cares about is that slip of paper signed by the judge. You can still plan the big church wedding, you'll just technically already be legal to the government. If it makes you feel better just keep the legal part hush hush and let people think the church wedding is the real deal. It shouldn't really matter to any guests anyways

My husband and I were pretty sure he'd be stationed in Washington, so we were planning on waiting to marry til next year. It turned out that his options were limited to overseas only duty stations. We were married literally 5 weeks after he found out. I wish we could have been married 2 weeks sooner cause then we'd be getting the separation pay AND I'd have been on his orders. Since we married just after the orders we get BAH (had to fight for it) but no separation pay and no command sponsorship. They also will not pay for my travel expenses when we do CS to go live with him. 

I understand he has C school as well, but I really think the sooner you can do it the better if you are already set on getting married. Our only issue with getting married while he was in A school was that I could only get him off base on the weekend and the courthouses in the city he was in were closed on them. We got married the day he graduated. 

He won't need any sort of permissions to go get married (their supervisors do appreciate a little warning though) Some courts will let you get your marriage license and do the marriage on the same day. There is a special exception for military members .Otherwise you have to wait something like 3 days. To speed up the process you might be able to get your marriage license without him. I had to get my then fiance to sign and have notarized an absentee affidavit that I was able to take to the courthouse and get the license without him. -------- The Catholic church will not turn you down if you want to have a Catholic marriage. Speak to the priest or whoever is in charge at the church about it. They may still ask you to do the counseling, but should not turn you down because you are already legal with the state.