My bf and I are looking to get married soon. He has to report to the UK (no later than November 20th). He has unaccompanied orders. I guess I'm wondering if anyone has been in this situation? Can we get married before he leaves for the UK? Will the military cancel his orders if we get married b/c he's not unaccompanied anymore (someone told him this was a possibility)? Will I have to wait until he moves over to the UK and fly out there to get married? I'm fine with paying for my own move out there - I have the money and I would just need to pack up my clothes and fly out there. If I get married out there, does the paperwork move pretty quickly so I can apply for a job on base and receive health insurance asap? He's been working awful hours and by the time he gets out of work, all the offices are closed to inquire about all this information. I would greatly appreciate any advice. I feel like November 20th is right around the corner and I'm starting to get anxious and nervous that things won't get straightened out in time. I not in the military so I don't have access to this information. Thank you!!!

Does he not have someone at work to ask about this? My husband's XO helped him figure all of his orders and marriage stuff out a few years ago.

I agree ask his SO they always know

So, I'm totally clueless on military lingo... what's SO and XO??? Thanks :)

His sargeant

He can start at his chain of command, usually his boss, he can ask him what he needs to do.. I personally never heard of them canceling orders simply because they got married, but i do know they more than likely won't change them to accompained especially if he already has hard copies.. Since I don't know which branch he is i can't really say what might happen.

Getting married in the UK is a complicated matter. You have to apply for the licence at least a month in advance so that the Banns are read out, and you have to be resident for at least two weeks before the wedding. Which base is he moving to? I can ask some questions on the UK side if you want.

boy do I have this same exact experience, we did not have time to marry prior to his leaving for Italy. VERY HARD to marry in Italy. So I went on my own, checked into visitor passport regs because you can only stay so long as a visitor. so watch that time line as well. He may be really busy at first so if you wait till he leaves you may have to wait a while till he can take leave, then you fly to the nearest country that allows easy marriage, or come home to the states, or even try to get permission to get married on base over there, that ususally takes a bit of time, but it's an option. We were in Italy and we went to Malta, got married and then his command had to sponsor me. Yes, right away, I was a navy wife with absolutely everything available to me. If you get married prior to him leaving it should be a matter of changing his orders to accomp. BUT you will have to go through a lot of paperwork, so if you marry prior you better do it now, i know that sounds weird, but you will have to be command sponsored here, that requires first they make you navy wife, or whatever branch you are, then you have to be fit for overseas which means medical, dental, no pregnancy currently. If you are found unfit for overseas thats why they would cancel his orders, but they should NOT cancel his orders for any other reason, if you are not "processed" by the time he has to report you will be sent separately but no big deal. personally, i would not go to his command or anyone in it, I would keep it to yourselves, it seems to cause problems when anyone goes in and talks about anything that might make it inconvenient for anyone else. So forget that. Do what you want to do and they have no choice but to make you a military dependant 100%. We got back from our honeymoon and within one day I had my ID, then I had my doctors info, I registered my kitties on base, we lived out in town. I had all my gas coupons, my car had its sticker, everything was DONE. I filled out the command sponsor paperwork, took about one week and I had my MAC flight permission slips. ie, overseas you can fly anywhere for free on standby. If you are going to live in base housing it's probably better to marry prior to going because he will get a whole different set of options as a married man over there, much more and much better. I hope that helps, it worked for us!!! Lori

One more anwer to your ques, yes, right away you are allowed to work on base, however, depending upon your field/career/job, you may have to wait, cause its by wait list, people there longer get the job first. but the jobs that are the easy pay jobs are fairly simple to get. anything higher up is tough, but volunteer!! volunteer in the exact office/dept you want to work in and you will find you will have the job quicker. They also have to hire a certain amount of outside help from the host country which can be frustrating when you are looking for work, that's why it "pays" to start volunteering, or take one of the immediately available jobs, ie commisary/exchange checker, etc. Lori

Dh got his unaccomp orders for Naples, Italy 5 months before we got married. At the time we already had our wedding date set, just were waiting for him to get back from the litterbox. As soon as we got married, we got his orders amended(literally..less than 72 hrs later) and started working on everything so that I could come with him. We ended up paying for my trip and I came on my tourist passport for 3 months before I went back to the states and changed passports and came back command sponsored. I'm still waiting on a job, the waitlists are long here due to SOFA.