Clearing the Air.

Many of you that followed me over here from my personal blog have left comments or sent emails surprised to hear that I am in fact, already married (since December 1!).   I chose not to make this public knowledge on my personal blog because our extended families don’t know.  We didn’t want to ruin our “real” wedding just because we signed a few papers.

With a deployment rapidly approaching, we had a series of late night talks about maybe getting married before he left.  When we got engaged, that was definitely NOT our intention… but the military has this funny way of making people do crazy things.   For those of you that aren’t familiar with the military, if you’re not married… you’re nothing.  It doesn’t matter how many deployments you’ve endured, how much support you give, how many care packages you send or how many times you pick those dirty BDU’s off the floor and toss them in the wash, you’re nothing.  The military will not tell you anything pertaining to the man that you love, you have no rights and no benefits.  This did not sit well with either of us, but we both felt strongly that we wanted to get married ONCE and only ONCE, and the military wasn’t going to change that.

Then, we talked some more and weighed our options.  My main concern was, although the chance was slim that something would happen to him…  in the event that something DID, I wouldn’t be notified.  Of course, his parents would be notified and then they would tell me, but it just didn’t seem fair.  The pay was infinitely better, and in the middle of planning a destination wedding… it was something to strongly consider.   I would be able to have a full military power of attorney, which i’ve already had to use countless times to prove that I can do mundane things like get a copy of my insurance card that’s in Matt’s name, dispute the phone bill when AT&T decides to be an asshole or cash a check.   I would also have privileges on base, which would come in handy if I had any questions about his pay, his deployment, whatever.

We went back and forth on the subject for a night and then decided that it’s just a piece of paper… let’s do it.  The very next day, we applied for our marriage license, and three days after that… we were married.   I ordered a white dress from Victoria’s Secret and hated it.  I felt fat, my hair wasn’t quite right and I was on my period.  It’s not really a day that i’d like to remember.   Matt worked night shift the night before our civil ceremony and was done at 7am, so we met for pancakes and wound up eating with a handful of officers at my favorite breakfast spot.   At 9am on the button, we were married by the County Clerk.  Me in my dress that I hated and Matt in his uniform (he looked so handsome).

My best friend and his brother served as our witnesses and the whole time the Clerk was reading my part of the vows his brother was in the back shaking his head and mouthing “Say No!”, he had us all laughing so hard… it was pretty great.   Is it wrong to say that we didn’t much take this seriously?  We really didn’t, it was just a formality so that the military would talk to me.   After the “wedding” we went back to our house and Matt promptly went to sleep.  It was getting late and he had to work night shift again at the department.  I spent our wedding night falling asleep all by myself.  Awesome.  We didn’t tell our parents until a few days later, they were thrilled and surprisingly not upset.  Our extended family still doesn’t know.   Six days later, Matt deployed to Iraq for a 6 month tour.

xoxo,

Jersey.