Major Wedding Date Conflict

My brother is a marine officer. As it stands right now, I've just found out that he'll definitely be deployed from the end of 2010 to the end of 2011. My wedding is February 19, 2011. I lucked out with the place and time and everything, and I was just starting to get really excited about it. Some people don't understand how I would even consider changing anything, because there was always the chance that he might have to be somewhere else...however, now he'll most likely be in the middle east. I just can't get too excited planning my wedding when my only brother is going to be there. There's a possibility he'll be there for more than a year....I'm looking to find the exact time he'll be deployed...sometime at the beginning of the summer I think... This cuts back on the amount of time we have to save money (which the February wedding was quite helpful with as well :( ) , etc.

Does anybody have any tips, or has anybody had anything similar happen to them?

Thanks for any help you may have

I really know how you feel. FH and I were originally planning our wedding for june 2010 until we found out his sister would be deployed. She's in the Navy. I couldn't imagine he not being at the wedding so we changed that date. For us it worked out since we have extra time to save and we really wanted her to be there...

I say first find out the exact time that he's leaving. They're usually very exact. An option I could think of immediately is have a very small intimate ceremony b4 he leaves and then when he comes back have a large reception/party. That way you get the best of both worlds I know this is a hard decision to make, if you need to talk, I'm here

I don't have any tips but I just wanted to say that I'm sorry you are going through this!

oh no!! i understand cause i would never imagine my bro not being at the wedding.... try and see if maybe you can get a cancellation date (someone else cancelled) - a friend of mine got a great last minute deal... why not call RH and tell them you are looking to move the wedding up if they get a cancellation...

HTH

Carrie that is terrible!

Jason's brother is special ops in the army and he's leaving tomorrow for Columbia(for a couple months). Then (without coming home in between) 8 months in Afghanistan.

Last time they said '6 months' he was gone for a year and a half.

We knew there was a chance he might not be there. But now it's definitely not looking promising - we were considering pushing back the wedding but even if we did there is still the possibility he won't be home for the next day.

We decided to keep the date. It's really hard though.