The world's largest USO hosted its first wedding Saturday.
Pvt. Chase Howard of 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Benning, Ga., married his high school sweetheart, Brittany Westover, in an intimate ceremony at the USO Warrior and Family Center on Fort Belvoir while on a four-day pass, after just completing Advanced Individual Training.
The ceremony was a long anticipated event.
"We rescheduled four times," Westover said before the wedding. "The first time we were going to have the wedding was December 16, right after he got out of Basic. Unfortunately, he didn't get leave. We rescheduled for the 21st. But … he didn't get leave for the holidays at all. So we rescheduled for the eleventh (of January), hoping he would be back by then, and he didn't get leave. So, finally, after that one, we rescheduled for this time, and this is it!"
Since the date was finalized only a few days before, Westover and her fiancé's mother, Diane Howard, had to rush to find a venue. After they had exhausted all their options, they called the USO looking for leads -- and the USO volunteered to help.
"We were running around, we called all the different community centers that were around here, trying to get a place. Nobody had any rooms for us," Westover said. "So finally, we called the USO. We were just hoping maybe they would have some tips. They were so, so nice, and they were like 'Well, why don't you guys just get married here?' They really were our saving grace. We wouldn't have anywhere to get married, if it wasn't for them."
When USO staff members and volunteers found out about the couple's predicament, they jumped into action.
"The (groom's) mom called, sounding desperate. We just thought … 'Why not have a wedding at the USO?'" said Pauline Ray, hospitality services and entertainment manager for the USO-Metro Warrior and Family Center. "We're really excited to be part of their day. Our mission is to serve our military and this is something special that we wanted to do."
"We wanted to do something special for the couple, so we actually got them a room at the Ritz-Carlton for their wedding night," she added.
Howard and Westover both grew up in Army Families and met in high school in Fort Bragg, N.C.
Since the wedding had to be rescheduled so many times, three out of four of their parents weren't able to attend. The father of the groom, assigned to the 249th Engineer Battalion on Fort Belvoir, deployed to Afghanistan shortly before the ceremony and the bride's parents were in the middle of a PCS move to Fort Lewis, Wash.
However, the USO made sure they were all able to see the ceremony using video-chatting software.
Now that he is in the Army, Howard said he couldn't think of a more fitting way to start married life than at the USO.
"It's amazing that they could put all this on for us," he said. "I think it's the perfect way to start our Army Family."
For more information on the USO Warrior and Family Center, visit http://usometro.org/location.php?p=15.
Social Sharing