How to introduce a newly married military couple? || Dear Military Spouse

Q. I was just wondering if there is a proper way to introduce a newly married military couple to their wedding reception. For example, is it proper to say “Lance Corporal and Mrs. Price”?

If you are going to use rank for enlisted (which is traditionally not done) you would introduce them as Lance Corporal and Mrs. John Joe Smith (his full name is used). Again rank is traditionally only reserved for officers not enlisted personnel, but that doesn’t mean you cannot do it.

So you can either use his rank and full name or simply Mr. & Mrs. John Joe Smith. The choice is yours, but if you would like to keep with tradition and he is enlisted, you would simply use Mr. & Mrs. John Joe Smith and omit his rank.

I am not completely sure why ranks are omitted from enlisted, but tradition holds that only the ranks of officers are used.

Within the coming week or so I will have a complete section dedicated to Military Weddings, so keep an eye out for that as well!

Update: You can find the section dedicated just to military weddings here.