The military wedding!!

It's time friends. Time to do a feature on the military wedding!

I am very excited to be marrying a Navy pilot in September, who will be wearing his dashing uniform during our wedding! His uniform is called Dinner Dress or "mess dress" in the service, but is far from messy! It's quite hunky, if I do say myself.

His looks quite similar to dear old Will's uniform, except black. I'm a fan. We're inviting all of our military guests, retired or active duty, to come in uniform too. Shall be quite festive. Mr. Livalittle's five brothers are all in the military, so they'll be decked out as well!

Two weeks after we had met, Mr. L told me that he wanted a sword arch at our wedding (I know, two weeks, right? Look up "whirlwind courtship" in the dictionary and you'll see us). The notion of the sword arch is quite romantic to me; I remember seeing one at a royal wedding in a movie as a child and still sigh dreamily just thinking about it.

Although the crossed swords are a big part of the idea of our wedding, it only lasts about one minute! For just one minute, there are many rules. First of all, there must be between six and twelve sword bearers, wearing the proper sword-bearing uniform of their service; second, sword archmen standing across from each other must be of similar height (or all tall on the groom's side, all short on the bride's side) and in the same military service; finally, the last two sword bearers must drop their swords and the couple must "kiss to pass," after which the last swordsman smacks the bride on the behind. At this point, they normally say "welcome to the Navy!" According to tradition, the bride and groom walk through the arch of swords to "ensure the couple's safe transition into their new life together."

When reading about military weddings a few weeks ago, the phrase that stuck out in my mind was the following: "the military wedding features extensive use of weaponry." Of course, Mr. L thinks that this is the best thing that has ever happened and has since asked if we can use fireworks, canons or other incendiaries. What if we did fire a canon? What if we had a civil war reenactment wedding? There could be some pretty terrible worst case scenarios if that were to happen; my vivid imagination is providing all sorts of insane possibilities. This is why there will be no explosives.

In a military wedding, the highest ranking officers and the groom's commanding officers must be seated near the front, in the second row or in the first row if the parents are not present. Also, the groom's sword is frequently used to cut the cake. This makes me highly nervous, however, seeing that my lovely fiance has already threatened to behave inappropriately during the cake cutting. Adding a sword to this mix may not be the greatest plan. I mean, look at the image below! She's holding the sword like she's at a firing range. The most hilarious part about the whole cutting the cake with the sword thing is that Mr. L will have to somehow transport his sword to DC for a weekend. I don't imagine that it classifies as a carry-on. Oh well!