Wedding Bells: Why We Merged Our Surnames

I’ve been thinking about writing this blog post for a while now and was inspired to finally put pen to paper (as it were) today, after recently purchasing a book where lots of different feminists share some of their personal stories (Feminists Don't Wear Pink by Scarlett Curtis).
I think the topic I'm going to talk about is something that everyone is bound to have different opinions on, and different personal experiences too. This is mine.

Growing up, I just assumed that I would take my future husband’s surname when we got married (I also assumed I would get married, which is probably a whole other blog post!), it was never something that I thought to question.
The wife taking the husband’s name was just ‘normal’ it was just ‘how it was’. So why would/should it be any different for me?
I even remember thinking as a young girl (and it turns out, into adulthood up until the age of 26), that I didn’t yet know what my full name was going to be for the majority of my life!
What a funny idea when you think about it: having no idea what your own name will be.
But, as I say, at that time it never occurred to me that something might not be right about that. Or about what that said about me, purely because of my gender.

It was only when I got engaged, and suddenly what had been theoretical was becoming reality, that I started to feel conflicted about changing my name. It was almost this sense of unease: I was presented with what my new name would be and the exact date that it would change, but that person didn’t feel like me. I couldn’t identify with her.
I’d lived my whole 26 years as Lisa Woodlock, that was who I was, and the combination of having ovaries and new a ring on my finger wouldn't change that.

And the more questions I started to ask into why we take the man’s surname, the less sense it made.
Historically in the UK, wives only started taking their husband’s names around the time of the 15th Century, prior to that married women were regarded as having no surname at all.
As one court ruled in 1340, “when a woman took a husband, she lost every surname except ‘wife of’”. Seriously.
And then further back than that, 1000 years ago, hereditary surnames in England weren’t even a thing!

Which leads on to the line of argument that says that the “family name” should be carried on down the generations. But, what about the family name’s of women? Why are they less important than that of men’s?
My Dad has 2 daughters, is it ok for no one to take his name forward? And what about my mum’s maiden name? Does that not matter? To me, it just doesn’t add up!

As a Christian, I wanted to take my faith into account too, especially in such a big life decision. To cut a long story extremely short, the Genesis 2 verse that talks about marriage says “a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife” - note the only party leaving their parents here is the guy... and as far as the Ephesians 5 passage that talks about submission goes, it starts with “submit to one another in love”, and the rest I hold as contextual to the time it was written. (I said I was cutting a long story extremely short here!)

Married friends I spoke to gave me mixed opinions as well.
One friend told me about how she’d been so happy to take her husband’s name because she’d had such a hard time with her family and really wanted to feel part of his instead.
Another friend told me how hard she found it now to have given up her name, and the feelings of having lost something that she had. How she wished she’d followed her uneasy gut feelings about changing it.
I've also had at least 2 friends who haven't really wanted to change their names, but have done so with an almost fatalistic view of 'it has to happen because that's just how things are done'.

When I spoke to Tim about my feelings on this, he was totally wonderful and said that he didn’t mind and would be happy to take my surname instead... until 10 minutes later when he turned around and said that he totally got what I’d meant and didn’t want to lose his surname either!

We decided that whatever surname we had, we wanted it to be the same one as each other. So then we had 2 options that we could see (or that Google could suggest to us): double-barrel or merge.

We thought about double-barrelling but our names were a bit of a mouthful together, so then we started talking about merging our names. It just made sense; a way to represent both of our families and to bring them together to make a new family name. We felt this was the perfect way to symbolise what would actually be happening as we got married. It wasn’t that either of us were leaving our families behind, it was that we were bringing them together and making a new one!

How to merge the names though? We didn’t know anyone else who had!

We went through about every combination of Hearson and Woodlock that there is. From the first half of either name with the second half of the other, to completely random anagrams of all of the letters! In the end, Woodson was the option that actually sounded like a real name, so that was the winner.

Our decision to merge our names was largely met with excitement and enthusiasm (although occasionally with confusion or raised eyebrows!), and overall our nearest and dearest have been nothing but supportive, which we’ve been so grateful for.

This is mine and Tim’s story, the way we’ve chosen to approach our married names. For other people it will be different. The only thing I’d say to anyone who’s in a position of thinking about married names: make sure you ask questions before making a life-long decision. Things might have been a certain way for hundreds of years, but that doesn’t make it ok and it doesn’t mean that we have to live by it too. We can change things, we have that power.

Lisa xx

Real Talk: Going From Negative To Positive

I feel a bit hesitant in writing this blog post because I think the subject matter might be a bit controversial. It isn't light or fluffy, and it isn't about the happy, shiny things in life. It's about an emotion that everyone experiences at different times to different extents: anger.

Anger isn't a nice emotion but is it a bad one? Can it ever be good or helpful? See, when we think of anger, more often than not the images that come to mind are violent and threatening. But what about righteous anger? What about that gut feeling when we see injustice in the world that says, "something needs to change here"?

I also think that even anger that isn't righteous, anger that's born out of irritation or tiredness, is a very natural emotion. It's what we do with it that makes the difference.
Do we let it rule over us? Snap at our loved ones or just plain blow a fuse and shout the house down? Or do we take back the control? Not suppressing the emotion but recognising it, acknowledging it and then finding a positive way to process it and let the feeling out, at the right time.

The other day, I felt so angry. It was one of those times where in the moment I locked the anger inside, so that it just boiled beneath the surface until I was able to leave the situation and deal with it.
Here's what I did to let it out and process it in the most healthy way I could think of:

1. Exercise
Before going home, I went for a walk. About 30 mins of brisk walking in total. At first, all I could do was seethe and silently rant, but as I channelled the energy out through my legs and breathed in the fresh air, something started to relax. The dust began to settle and my thoughts became quieter and clearer.
I began to be able to see beneath the angry emotion and ask myself some questions: What was it about the situation that was making me so angry? Could I do anything to change the situation? Did I need to change something about myself?

2. Slow Breathing
It's amazing the difference that slowing down breathing can make to our stress levels. If  you ever find that your breathing is shallow and anxious, then give this exercise a go:
Hold your breath for 3, exhale for 3, inhale for 3. Do this a couple of times and then when you feel able, start to extend the times of holding and exhaling the breath (this will correct your carbon dioxide levels and force your body to relax); it's a simple exercise that can be done anywhere and gives pretty instant results.

3. Talking
As an introvert, I need some time alone to process how I feel before talking to someone else. Once I understand myself and my reactions a bit better, then I find it really helpful to chat things over with my husband or a close friend/family member.

4. Meditation
Once I got home, I took some time to do a couple of short meditations using the HeadSpace app. It has tailored meditations to fit different needs, including ones for anger and frustration, which were the ones I used. The first one was 3 minutes long, the second was 5. Genuinely, after that combined 8 minutes I felt so much better.

Each of these steps didn't change the situation I was in, but they helped me to get some distance from it, so that I wasn't overwhelmed and could think clearly.
Once we can take a step back and look at things objectively, we can work out what to do to make a positive change.

What about you? Do you have any tips for channelling negative emotions into something positive?

Lisa xx

Wedding Bells: Ideas & Pinspiration

What did people do before the wonder that is Pinterest? It’s such a great space for collecting ideas and thinking through the look of a wedding day.

Here’s a few thoughts and tips for the exciting ideas and Pinteresting stage of planning a wedding.

Dreaming Dreams

The great thing about using Pinterest or flicking through wedding magazines, is the wide variety of themes and ideas that you’re given. My advice would be to make the most of this time and explore a few different avenues, maybe creating a board for each. Have some fun dreaming dreams!

I went through several different versions of the general theme for our wedding day. (At least 1 of these was before we’d actually got engaged... Secret boards are everything! I ambiguously named mine ‘Special Day’, just in case Tim ever caught sight of it.)

I started off loving the idea of incorporating wild flowers throughout our day, and going for a fairly relaxed, boho feel. When I floated this idea past my husband-to-be however, he wasn’t the biggest fan and thought it didn’t quite fit with us.

In the end, we chose to have a fairly relaxed feel, but with a bit more classic romance mixed in, e.g. roses were our main flowers, with gypsophila to compliment.

Don’t Be A Lone Wolf

Getting married is the process of two people becoming united together; so resist the temptation to plan it all yourself.

One of my absolute pet peeves when it comes to wedding planning, is this attitude of the women planning everything and the men being disinterested and just rocking up on the day. Not only is this massively sexist, but it completely goes against the point of the day!

This is a time for working together, preparing to build a marriage and a life as one unit. Every aspect of the day should reflect both of you. Learn to compromise and work together, even if this is something that you find a challenge – if you can’t do it when planning a one-day event, you’ll be scuppered when it comes to much bigger and more important decisions and challenges later in life.

As someone who organises events as part of my job, it took discipline not to rush on ahead and do it all myself! For every aspect of the day I would think of some ideas, but then take them to Tim to hear his ideas too, before excitedly making decorations or meeting with a vendor together.

Decisions, Decisions...

 
All idea stages must come to an end at some point.

Have a look through all of the different ideas you’ve collected and begin to filter them down. Which are your favourites and why? Are they practical? Can you afford them with your budget? Do you both like them? What will your friends and family think? Do they reflect you both as a couple? Will you still like it in 40 years’ time when you look back at your wedding day?

If you’ve been using Pinterest, make a main board that all of your filtered ideas can be moved onto. Then take a step back, make a cup of tea, (you might even want to come back to it the following day) and see how the ideas work together. Are they cohesive? Will they fit within the shape of the day? Do you both like all of the ideas, and if not, are there any areas that you need to find a compromise on?

If you need to, start to filter some things out until you’re left with a core of exciting, practical ideas that you both love (or can at least put up with if you’ve had to compromise in one area to have your choice in another!).


Now it’s time to start making those dreams a reality. In my next set of posts we’ll be chatting through the practicalities and logistics of making bookings and organising each area of the day; starting with drawing up a timeline.

Are you a serial Pinterester or have you come to this with a really clear picture of the day in your mind?

Lisa xx

Beauty Bar: Lip Balm Gold

Introducing Nivea's Hydro Care lip balm - unless you've used it before, it's not actually new or anything...
This is my absolute favourite lip product. Ever. Of all time.
I've repurchased it at least 3/4 times (which for me constitutes a life-long fave) and am coming to the end of my current one so will be buying another very soon!
I am always absolutely plagued by dry lips in Winter, which is a bit of a nightmare when you love lipsticks as much as I do, so finding a good, reliable lip balm has been key for me.

Reasons why I'm the number one fan of this lip balm:

1. It's a twist-up stick, which means that I don't have to worry about cleanliness when I apply it, and it doesn't gunk up my hand either. Super practical.

2. It is actually moisturising. This might sound obvious but I have used some pretty drying lip balms in my time; the worst culprits of all being lip butters from The Body Shop.
There was such a craze for those lip butters when I was in high school and I remember excitedly buying the coconut one because it smelt SO good and because I really like their body butters.
I wanted to like the lip butter so much that I just kept using it and pretending it was good, even when it was actually just worsening and worsening the dry lip situation... Never. Again.

3. It has SPF 15! As you'll know if you've read my blog about the importance of SPF and UVA ratings in skincare and beauty products; I am a massive fan of anything with this sort of skin protection. I mean, if you can put it into a product, why wouldn't you?

Do you have a beauty/skincare staple that you repurchase again and again?

Lisa xx

Wedding Bells: Bridesmaids & Groomsmen

Deciding on who to ask to be a bridesmaid or a groomsman can be one of the trickiest wedding planning decisions to make.
There may well be some people, e.g. siblings or life-long friends, who are an easy choice, but outside of this it can all become a lot more ambiguous.
Your wedding day will be one of the most special days of your life; make sure the people you ask are those who will support you through this major life event, but who you also want to still know in 10, 25, 50 years!
Below I've put some questions that may well come up as you make these decisions.

- "How many bridesmaids/groomsmen should I have?"
There really is no perfect number. I know people who have had 1, often a sibling, and others who have had 6+. Lauren Conrad had 10! And if LC says it's ok, you know it's ok.
Basically, ask as many people as you feel is right for you, but do remember to take things like your budget into account, which I'll talk more about in the next question.

- "Do I have to pay for their entire outfit/hair/make up, etc?"
This is really up to you and your partner. Take an honest look at your budget (as covered in my last blog post), and see what you might be able to afford.
If you're working with a generous budget, then this is a great opportunity to treat and pamper some of your favourite people.
If you're working with a more modest budget, then do be honest with your bridesmaids/groomsmen. Explain that your budget isn't massive, and then say what you'd like to buy for them, and what you'd like them to cover themselves. Make sure to enable honesty both ways here, so that your bridesmaids/groomsmen can tell you if they aren't able to afford that £500 dress you've picked out for them to pay for!
Being involved in someone's wedding party is such an honour, but it can be really expensive too, so do make sure that your special day (or even the hen party/stag do!) won't be clearing out their bank accounts or putting them under financial strain.

- "If someone asked me to be a bridesmaid/groomsmen at their wedding, do I now need to ask them to be one at mine?"
In short, no.
I'm not going to lie, this could create some awkwardness, and maybe even some hurt, but most people will understand that there are lots of factors that go into choosing your wedding party. One factor could be your budget, as discussed above, or another could be that you want to have the same number of bridesmaids as groomsmen, or that you've fallen out of touch with someone since you were involved in their wedding.
It is true that some people will be upset by not being asked if they're expecting to be, but most people, particularly if they've been through the process of planning their own wedding, will understand.
If you do feel like there could be awkwardness, then you could always involve the person in another aspect of the wedding (e.g. doing a reading during the ceremony), or just bite the bullet and talk to them about it, explaining where you've come from in your decision not to ask them.

As you might be working out if you've read my other posts in this series, there's quite a lot of biting the bullet involved in planning a wedding!

Do you have any other questions on this subject that I haven't covered here? If so, please ask in the comments below and I'll let you know my thoughts.
Equally, if you have any wisdom to share on this then please do write it below for us all to see!

Lisa xx

Evading Those January Rays

January weather in the UK = cold, dark and rather uninspiring. At this time of year I can hardly remember what sun cream is, let alone contemplate putting it on my face. So why did I buy a tube of it yesterday?

Sadly, it's not because I'm off to somewhere hot and sunny, and it's also not because Leeds has inexplicably been forecast a heatwave (the reality is basically rain and snow forever).

I actually bought it after watching a documentary on BBC iPlayer called The Truth About Looking Good with Cherry Healey. (Which I SO recommend for anyone who is a fan of beauty and skincare.)

On it, a scientist said that 75% of lines and wrinkles are caused by a lifetime of sun damage, and that this damage isn't just caused by being on a beach in Barbados, but also by sitting indoors, in front of a window, in the middle of winter. This is because UVA rays are not blocked by glass.
I couldn't believe that this could be true, but when they compared the wrinkles around each eye of a coach driver, the side that tended to get the most sun exposure through the coach windscreen, had noticeably more lines.

Apparently, we should be wearing something with both a high SPF and a high UVA rating everyday. The UVA rating is shown in stars, often on the back of a product. I'd thought that a product containing both of those things would be easy to find, but I actually couldn't spot anything at all in Superdrug, and could only find 2 sun creams in Boots that had anything above a 3 star UVA rating (the scientist said you need at least 4 stars).

So many brands, such as Garnier Ambre Solaire and Hawaiian Tropic, only had a UVA rating of 3 stars. In the end, the only 2 products I found with 5 star ratings were both made by Boots: one from their No7 brand and the other from their Soltan range. As there was a £9 difference I went for the Soltan option; why pay more than double the price when the skin protection is the same?

I was, however, really pleased to see that the daily moisturiser I already use, from Boots Botanics (see the photo at the top of this post - which I promise is not sponsored by Boots!), is SPF15 and has a 5 star UVA rating! So my new routine is to use that in the morning, then top up with a bit of Soltan at lunchtime.

Are you someone who wears sun cream daily?

Lisa x

Pre-Spring Cleaning

Even though Spring is still a few months away, I think January is a great time to sort through things and have a bit of a clear out.

Last year I discovered a clever little hack for sorting out and storing necklaces. We've all experienced the frustration of attempting to extract one necklace from a tangle of twenty. It takes ages and I for one am so terrible at detangling that I just give up half the time and end up hiding the lot away again.

So here is the answer that I've come up with... cling film.

Take a little square of cling film (or Saran wrap as I think it's called in the USA), pop a single necklace on top of it and simply wrap up. Et voila! They store away very compactly and are ready to bring out and wear - no knots!

Do you have any handy life hacks to share?

Happy pre-Spring cleaning!

Lisa x