what do you think- wedding advice

[settles]

let me give you a little background info then i have a few things i need advice on! thank you in advance

me and df have been dating 4 years, and on feb 16th we will have been engaged for a year. we want a nice wedding not HUGE, but we will prob invite 250-300 people. we have always liked the idea of an outside wedding. but im NOT liking the idea of planning it at all.
df is due back around about feb of 2009 (hope thats not agains opsec, if so let me know and ill take it out) we had first set our date as june 6, 2009 so we woudl have a few extra months when he got back to let us get final things done together. im living in arkansas with the in-laws b/c the wedding will be here in our hometown. we are stationed at hunter in savannah. df will still have time to serve once he gets home and will be returning to savannah.

so here are my ?'s

we thought about moving the date up... b/c we will have been apart 15 months and if our wedding is in june that another 4 months we will be apart :/ also.. once he gets back he will probably be joining the ranger bat.
he is an officer and has to put in his package, he should get accepted but he will have to go for 9 weeks of training. so im thinking what if the training lands on the week or our wedding/honeymoon???

i live in arkansas and april and may are usually pretty rainy if we had an outside wedding im so scared we would have to go to PLAN B, have any of you had 2 do this? what are your thoughts?
-my inlaws have a beautiful house with land, and thats where we would have the outside wedding. im just thinking if there is a last minute date change their house would be easier to work w/rather than renting a place?

do you think its tacky to put a note with the inviations that said something like...
...please remember blake is in iraq, and there could be a last minute date change due to the army....


thoughts... comments...suggestions!!
please and thankyou

[carmel11725]

hm, i dont really know what to tell you about the date. its the military...dates will always change. I had to switch our date twice (thankfully before all the planning started.)
i LOVE outside weddings too. I almost had one...we're from FL, on the beach, so it would have been so beautiful, BUT i didnt want to take the chance of it raining and then having to plan for a backup, too stressful for me. Your in-laws def would be a lot easier if there is a date change. MOST places, once you give the deposit, your date is locked in. The place we had our reception at was very helpful and willing to work around me though...i let them know in advance before i put the deposit down that Jordan was in the Marines and dates always change. If you decide to look at other facilities than your in-laws...just ask and let them know whats up before you put any sort of deposit down.
I had a lot of other information that i needed to elt all my guests know about for the wedding. But instead of putting it with the actual invitation, i sent out a separate "newsletter" type thing to all of my guests. It was my aunt's suggestion...i got a lot of tips from her...shes a wedding coordinator and she said it was the proper way of going about it. Hope all that helps and good luck!!!

[settles]

thanks so much! the newsletter sounds like a great idea!
i guess im crazy because im not the least bit excited about planning our wedding, honestly im just ready to be married to my man
im just so scared if i do an outside wedding it will raing. a wedding is stressful enough to plan, i dont want to have to plan a backup wedding too :/

[bellezzagoffa]

How about planning it out doors with the possibility of a tent if it rains. There are places you can rent HUGE event tents...that can be put up as close as hours before the wedding is set to start. I have looked into them myself (I want to get married on the beach). Some can be a little pricey (and incredibly beautiful) but still not as much as if you had to break a contract with a venue because your DF's dates changed...kwim? This way there is no back up wedding to plan...just a safety net in case Mother Nature is not cooperating.

[Fidzy]

Originally Posted by settles i guess im crazy because im not the least bit excited about planning our wedding, honestly im just ready to be married to my man

you're not crazy, i was the exact same way... for that reason i wanted to elope. but we ended up having a very small ceremony at my in-laws house, which helped tremendously. I would recommend it, depending on how your relationship is. As for the date, as others have said, you never know, but I generally expect things to mess up any future plans.

good luck!