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

Wedding Bells: Cordially Invited

Invites and save the dates are the first taste of your wedding for your guests. They don't just communicate the details of the day, they also tell your guests how formal your wedding will be, what your wedding colours are and will hopefully show something of you and your partner's personalities.
One of the most memorable save the dates that we've ever received was a magnet. We just knew from this that the wedding day was bound to be quirky and fun. If this was their save the date, we couldn't wait to see what they'd do with the actual day!

Unfortunately the design of our wedding invites was actually one of the most stressful parts of planning our wedding. So interwoven with the tips below, I've included some of the things that I've learned and would do differently if we were to do it again. I hope it's helpful for you!

1. Pick Your Designer Wisely
It could be you, Paperchase, a creative friend, an Aunty with a glue gun or a professional stationery designer. Have a think about the kind of wedding stationery you'd like to have, your budget and the skills at your disposal to make it a reality.
Are you a creative person who would adore designing your stationery yourself? Can you use your gifts of lettering, drawing, photography, decoupage or Adobe Indesign? If you're confident with those sorts of things, then go for it! You'll be able to create something completely personal to you and your partner, with none of the faff or cost of hiring someone else to do it.

If, however, you don't feel you have the skills or time to do this, then there are lots of beautiful pre-printed sets of wedding stationery in shops like Paperchase and Hobbycraft, as well as a wide variety of professional designers out there to choose from.
We went down the designer route and I came across our designer through searching for Yorkshire Wedding Stationery Designers on Google. I had a look at her website, saw her previous designs and read some testimonials from her past customers, and was confident enough to go with her.

2. Extras & Details
Invites and save the dates can vary hugely. Have a think about the little details that you might want to include. Examples from our wedding stationery are that we made our save the dates and RSVPs postcards, to make sending them as easy as possible, and to save money on envelopes!
We also included a brief timeline with our invitations, so that our guests could get an idea of the shape of the day.

3. The Wording
Take some time to think about the wording you'd like to use. Would you like it to be formal or informal?
Who is inviting your guests to your wedding day? This is often representative of who is financing the day; is it the bride's parents (e.g. Mr and Mrs Pitstop request the honour of your company at the celebration of the marriage of their daughter Penelope Goody to Dick Bad-Guy Dastardly), the couple getting married (e.g. Penelope Pitstop and Dick Dastardly request the honour of your company at the celebration of their marriage), or is it a bit of both (e.g. Together with their families, Penelope Pitstop and Dick Dastardly request the honour of your company at the celebration of their marriage)?

4. Make Sure You & Your Partner Know What You Want
Here the Pinteresting from one of my previous Wedding Bells posts comes in handy. Have a look around at examples of other wedding stationery before you meet with a designer (or start designing your own). Go prepared with the types of stationery you would like (save the dates, invites, maps, RSVPs, menus, seating plan, etc...), the wedding colours and the general tone you'd like to set (e.g. formal or informal).
The problem that my husband and I ran into, was that we'd discussed these things a little bit before we met with our designer, but it turned out to not be enough. This meant that we weren't really on the same page and led to confusion when our designer was asking about things like colours and font preferences.
Feel free to take some examples with you of wedding stationery that you've seen and like, find out if your designer is able to achieve that sort of thing for you, and don't be afraid to look for another designer if this one can't do it.

5. Make Sure Your Designer Knows What You Want
Before leaving your initial meeting with your designer, run through with them all that you've discussed, and make sure that they have fully understood the brief that you've given them.
They may well have plenty of other clients that they're catering to at the same time as you, so make sure that the hours they put in for you will be well utilised.

6. Ask To Meet With Your Designer Again
This is a step that I so wish we'd taken! Arrange a date to next meet with your designer, where they can go through the stationery they've created for you. This should help to ease communications, as you will be able to tell them there and then if the colours they're using aren't spot on, if the fonts aren't what you were looking for, or if it just doesn't look how you'd imagined.
As it was, we had to do all of this over email, and there was so much back and forth, so many new versions (which costed us extra money every time), and gave us so much stress and worry. We started to feel like we were a burden to our designer, when actually we were paying her for a service and it was her job to deliver it to a high standard.

7. Don't Be Afraid To Compromise
In the end, we had to ask the designer to abandon what she'd done for us, because it just didn't look good. We asked her instead to recreate one of the designs on her website that she'd done for someone else, but with a few tweaks (no butterflies please!) and in our colours.
I just couldn't face any more back and forth with a designer who was sending me things that weren't what we were looking for! It may sound harsh, but it was becoming a major drain on my and my husband's energy; I needed to rein the whole thing back in and regain some of the control.

Are you in the process of designing your wedding stationery? What approach are you taking and how are you finding the process?

Lisa x

Wedding Bells: The Venue

Back in the day, venues for weddings tended to either be in a church or at a registry office. Nowadays however, people are branching out to also use a variety of special places or exciting overseas destinations to say their "I do's".
There are lots of elements to take into account here of course, but it's good to think about the venue early on, as this can shape a lot of other things down the line.

Here's a few things to think about when selecting a venue for your ceremony and reception.

Shop Around
It's the boring one to start with but it does have to be said that your budget can massively affect the venue you choose.
If you have an endless budget then you can pretty much have your pick of wherever you want, but if you have a more modest budget then it makes sense to shop around and compare prices of venues.
You need to know if you're getting a good deal for your dollar. Research venues on the internet and then go and have a look around.
Meeting with a venue's events planner can be so helpful, as they'll be able to tell you the practicalities and possibilities of making your dream day a reality. You can also ask them about cost and any other questions that you have.
They'll likely ask you about the date and timings for the day, so it's good to have a think about those before you go to meet them.

Churches
If you'd like to get married in a church, you'll need to either live in the parish or have been regularly attending the church for 6 months. You can find out which Church of England church belongs to your parish by using this website.
Be aware that, as with all venues, there will be a cost to using a church, such as the venue hire and payment for musicians, caretaker, etc...

Set The Tone
The venue you choose will be a big factor in setting the tone of the day.
Want to stay traditional? Consider choosing a venue set in the home town of the bride.
Want a fancy day? You could go for a huge church for the service, or a luxury hotel.
Want a more homely feel? A cute parish church or converted barn could be for you.
Are you city dwellers? Why not use an unexpected city centre venue? We got part way into talks with Leeds Art Gallery for our wedding reception - as this was where we went for our first date and where Tim proposed to me! Unfortunately, the venue had to pull out as they unexpectedly needed to have extensive work done to the building.
Or is the great outdoors more your bag? There are plenty of gorgeous venues set out in the countryside, or even not that far from cities and towns. Last summer we went to a wedding in the grounds of a local mill. The bride and groom arrived on canal boats, the ceremony was outside in front of a beautiful willow tree and there was a giant tent for the meal, speeches and party.

Decorations
When you're looking at venues, think about how you could decorate them. How do they relate to any Pinterest or mood boards that you've made? Do the venue have any photos of previous weddings that have taken place there?

Your Guests
It's important to take your guests into account when choosing your venue.
For instance, think about the distance that they'd need to travel, both to get to the service and then to go on to the reception if you're having them in separate venues.
If you're wanting to have a big wedding with lots of guests, then getting married abroad might not be the best idea. It's a long way for a lot of people to travel, and for those guests who aren't your close friends or family, the cost of travelling and accommodation might be too much for them to pay.

Catering
It's really important to think about the catering possibilities of a venue. Do they have their own caterers? Or are they happy for you to bring in your own? Do you like the sound of the menus they offer? Where would a meal take place? Are their prices within your budget?

Photos
The look, position and facilities of your venue are really important to think about in terms of the photos you'd like.
For instance, if you'd like some of the photos to be taken outside - would you like a cityscape in the background? Or a beautiful garden? Or something dramatic, like rolling hills or the ocean?
When we thought we were going to be using both a church and reception venue in Leeds city centre, we planned to go and have photos part way through the day in a park, so that we could have some photos that didn't have cement as a backdrop!
However, in the end our reception had grounds that we could have our photos in, so that was ideal.
When you look around venues, think about where group photos could be taken, and ask the events planner about ways that this has been done in the past.

What's the venue of your dreams?
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

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

Wedding Bells: The Budget

I have never been a lover of finance or really anything maths-related, but one of the crucial things to work out before doing any other preparations for a wedding, is the budget.
Wedding budgets can vary massively and this will impact basically all of your other planning decisions, e.g. venue, number of guests, any music or entertainment, the honeymoon, etc...

The first step is to sit down with your future husband or wife and have a frank chat about where this budget is likely to come from. It could be savings, help from parents or donations from friends.
Then if you're hoping for some outside help, bite the bullet and have those conversations. It's always a bit awkward to talk about money, but just ask if that person would be willing to give anything towards the wedding and see what they say.
A way that a friend of mine thanked all those who had contributed to her wedding, was to allocate each monetary gift to something specific; this meant that when the couple wrote their thank you cards they could say that the money was used to buy the flowers/wedding cake/invitations.

Once you know the budget you're working with, my advice would be to sit down together again and create a spreadsheet that has everything you'll buy on it. I found Pinterest really helpful for this, as there are loads of checklists on there that help you to think through every part of the day. I also found it really helpful to ask a few close friends who had recently got married, what the breakdown of their budget was - once again, money can be a sensitive subject, so maybe have a think about who you ask!

Then go through each item on the spreadsheet, prioritising the most important things as we talked about in my previous wedding blog post, and put down a realistic budget for each of them.

Keep referring back to this spreadsheet with every purchase you make. Weddings can so easily become very expensive, so make sure you're keeping track of your spending and logging all receipts.

Also, if your wedding budget is small, don't worry! I have been to some absolutely beautiful weddings that have been done on a tight budget. In fact these have been some of the most creative and personal weddings I've attended, where every aspect of the day reflects the couple getting married. Sometimes the bigger the budget a couple has, the less personal the details of the day are. This is because not being able to just buy things forces you to come up with creative alternatives or make things yourself.

The point is, you can create a really special day no matter what your budget is. You just have to sit down and work it out, then stick to it!

Do you have any wedding budget tips?

Lisa x

Wedding Bells: The Same Page

My husband and I got married in September ‘16 and it was one of the best days of our lives so far. My heart for this blog series is to create a space to share some of the things that I learned about wedding planning. I'll be looking at the different things to think about or organise, and will share some of the experiences we had.
I must say at this point that I am not a Wedding Planner, but I do have lots of experience of events planning, as well as the life experience of planning our own one. I feel like we learnt a lot, and I’d love to be able to put that to good use. If you’re currently in the process of planning a wedding - or think you might be soon! - then I hope this is helpful for you.

The posts I'll be doing are: Your Relationship, Budgeting, Picking The Date, Bridesmaids & Groomsmen, Decorations & Flowers, Venue, Invitations, Photographer, The Dress, Food, Music, Logistics, Hen Do & Stag Party, On The Day.

The first thing that I think is really important for every couple to do - once you’ve had some fun celebrating your engagement with friends and family! - is to both think of a list of your top priorities for the wedding day. For example:

• Guests - A couple of close friends? Just family? Everyone you've ever met?
• Budget - £500 / £10,000 / £30,000?
• Location - Where you grew up? Where you live now? Abroad?
• Photographs / Wedding Video - Photos of the whole day? Engagement shoot? Professional or keen relative with a camera?
• Food & Drink - Are you looking forward to a huge banquet followed by a knees up? Or is something a bit less lavish more your style?
• Type of Service - Church / registry office / country house / beach? 
• Style of the Day - Formal/ traditional or informal/ relaxed?
• Look of the day - How important to you are the decorations / flowers / clothes / make up / hair? Will you buy decorations or are your creative fingers itching to start making your own?
• Music - Traditional / contemporary / live / DJ / playlist on iPod?

These priorities and expectations that you might not even realise you have for the day, will inform things like your budget (how much to allocate to each area) and will also help you and your partner to go into wedding planning on the same page.
Are you wanting a huge, traditional wedding in a grand country home with everyone there from your mum to the postman? Or are you wanting a secluded wedding on a beach in Mauritius with just your 2 best friends to witness it?
I remember when my husband and I shared our list of priorities, we’d both put celebrating with our friends and family at the top of our lists, which meant we would be having a fairly large wedding.
Being Christians, it was also really important to both of us that we got married in our church. For us, the wedding ceremony, where we would make vows to one another before God, was absolutely the most important part of the day.
We also wanted to be able to treasure the memories of our engagement and wedding day for many years to come, so we wanted to have a great photographer. We asked our photographer to do an engagement shoot with us; to remember that time of our lives and to help us get used to having our photos taken before the big day!

What about you? What are your priorities or expectations for the day?
And are there any other areas of planning a wedding that you'd like to know about?

Lisa x