What's in a name?

There's the easy question, "Will you marry me?" Answer: OF COURSE!  Then there's the difficult question, "Will you change your name?" Answer: Umm... (cue inner dialog) Women have fought for decades so that they could get out of the house, go to college instead of finishing school, follow any career of their choice, and we still have to conform the the convention of the name....

I think the fact that it's a question recognizes the huge strides women have made.  That it's a choice women have and not an expectation.  There are so many inspiring and creative options where women are deciding to keep their maiden name, hyphen the two names, move the maiden name to a middle name and take the last name, make up a combination or new name, and just take his last name.  Regardless of the decision.  It's a decision, and it's a conversation worth having with your partner.

It is a struggle though. I struggled with my identity. I've grown up in a family (including my mother) that takes immense pride in our last name. My brothers and I all go by our last name in certain circles of friends.  It's symbolic of our origin and ethnicity.  There's a clan of us that have a strong common bond in our name.  For 26 years I've been called one name and now in one day it changes.  That's a lot to take in.  Not to mention I can't connect the cursive 'C' to the 'T' the way I can connect the cursive 'C' to the 'A' in my current signature.  Plus my new initials are CAT. Cute? Lame? I don't know?

Then I started reflecting on the women in my life and how they were connected to me, and they all have different last names.  Does that make us less connected?  Not at all.  It makes us more.  It gives me women as role models who made the choice (or didn't have the choice) to keep, drop, take, hyphen, or shift all their names.  It expands our identity to include people from all over the world. What an empowering feeling! And that's what women fought for, empowerment and the ability to choose their destination.

So I guess Juliet knew what she was talking about when she told Romeo:

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

__________
When you register for Guest Bliss, you'll get a personal message from Jeremy and me, where you can see what I chose to do about my name.

The Traditional Wedding

I really struggled with a lot of the common wedding traditions.  I define myself as an independent woman, an activist and a feminist.  I don't need marriage to give me worth, I've worked hard for my career, my education, and my opinions.  So, why am I doing it? 


My first instinct was to reject all tradition and symbolism that came with a wedding.  I didn't feel like a piece of property that needed to be given from one man to another, I certainly was not going to be veiled, just in case my groom may find me ugly having never seen me before, and I didn't want to wear white, because let's be serious I'm not...you get the point.  


But when the day came that the man of my dreams got down on one knee- I burst into tears.  I wanted a big diamond (conflict free, of course) and I wanted to call my mom and all my girlfriends immediately.  I was useless at work and took at least 20 minutes to write an email because I couldn't stop staring at the sparkles on my ring finger.  How was this shift even possible? Who is this new woman?


And more importantly, how do I merge these two people.  Thank God the crying stopped after 8 hours and a week later I was a functioning employee.  Once I was faced with the expectation of tradition, it wasn't quite as easy to reject, but how could I continue to be an authentic, independent, feminist woman?  


Here's how I reconcile it: I've analyzed it.  I've thought about the implications of the tradition.  Sometimes the tradition is meaningful to the people you care about more than you care about yourself, sometimes the tradition gives you a clear default, and sometimes the tradition is exactly what you want, but sometimes the tradition just isn't 'us,' sometimes the tradition makes you claustrophobic, and sometimes the tradition just doesn't make sense.  


That's what feminists and civil rights activists have done for years.  We've questioned tradition.  "Because we've always done it that way...." just doesn't work.  That's not a valid answer for the modern-traditional-feminist-bride.  So at the end of the day, it's your special day (just like macy's, halmark, crate and barrel, target, and your grandmother tell you).  I think as long as you deeply believe that what you're doing is what you and your fiancée think is true and authentic for you- do whatever you want and forget what it means to be confined by modern and traditional. 

The Modern Wedding

Recently I was called by Nordstrom for a screening to participate in a focus group for the Nordstrom bridal suite.  In addition to my race, age, ethnicity, and education, I was asked by the woman on the phone how I would describe my wedding vision. (Let the record show I appreciate the intentional diversity in Nordstrom marketing/ advertising)

She asked me to say yes or no to the following:  Is your wedding:

• traditional
• rustic
• urban
• modern
• trendy
• sophisticated
• chic

While I have admittedly chosen modern wedding, does any one really want their wedding to be un-modern?  What does that mean? Everything today is directed toward 'the modern bride.'  What is the opposite of modern? Antique? Even that's modern because we call it vintage.  

Guest Bliss began as a tool to communicate with loved ones about an exciting upcoming event, because in that communication I realized the only person's address I have is my parents (because I had to memorize it in the 2nd grade) and my grandmother (because she refuses to embrace technology).  That wasn't going to help me send traditional announcements to anyone. 

You have to know where I'm going with this, because it happens every time someone gets married, you get the email/text/facebook message that says, "hey save the dates are coming out.  Send me your address."  Why do we use a tool we use everyday to collect information that we never use? Why not just communicate in a tool we use everyday?  

That's how the save the date option of Guess Bliss was created.  Use a tool we communicate in everyday! A unique customized email that both Saves the Date and prompts guests to upload their contact information and address for later use, when you want to send the special form of communication for the special occasion- the wedding!

I admit this will not work for your grandmother that refuses to use email, but that's an easy challenge after telling her you're not getting married in the Catholic Church.  

What's Guest Bliss?

Guest Bliss began soon after Jeremy asked me to marry him.  After the initial surprise of the proposal and tears of excitement, we began to think about how we wanted to communicate to family and friends about our upcoming events.  We looked at a bunch of wedding websites and online wedding management tools, and at the end of the day, Jeremy looked at me and said, "As a computer engineer, I cannot in good conscious allow any of these sites to represent us."  So he started playing around on the computer and created a fantastic tool for me to develop our wedding website.  www.guestbliss.com

The goal was to eliminate the distractions.  You know the wedding websites that flash bright red to do lists about how you have 287 things to do in the 194 days before your wedding.  AH! I was so overwhelmed.  I couldn't tell what was advertising and what was my to do list.  So then the Simplest Way to Save the Date was born.  I took my favorite part of everyone else's wedding website talked to Jeremy about what I wanted and he built it.

Here are some of my favorite things on your wedding website:

• I love the pictures! I want to see you and your fiancée having fun together (and so does my mom). So guest bliss is made completely of high quality photos of you!
• I love the people! The wedding is all about the family and friends. Guest Bliss allows an easy management tool. Each guest gets an individual log in and profile. This has helped us SO much! 
• I love the story! The story of your venue, the story of your proposal. In addition to writing the narrative of your story and proposal, Guest Bliss allows you to customize your google map and locations. So google doesn't write your location-you do!

www.guestbliss.com  has been so much fun for us and we are continuing to update it based on what we need for our wedding!