You could use the validation class of Laravel to validate a german date format in a nice way and easy way. Simply configure your validation rules based on the date_format validator on your controller action. In that way you controller could look like this:  /**
* Proceed edit
*
* @param Request $request
*/
public function add (Request $request)
{
//validate
$validate = Validator::make($request->all(), [
'created_at' => 'required|date_format:d.m.Y H:i:s',