public wedsite semi-available

we are little by little posting some wedding details to our public wedsite.....

we'll be posting more stuff as "the" day gets closer....

 


To Hyphen or Not - that is the question

"What’s in a name?". That phrase has been uttered by many, most often to mock a person. We all know there’s a lot to be said about names and it's the most basic level of one’s identity. That's why changing one’s name in marriage can be, for many women, a daunting thing.

More and more married women now are either keeping their surnames or are "hyphenated". They each have their own reasons. One of the most common reason is feminism. Some women claim it's their way of holding on to their individuality, to their identity. There's this one article I read about Lucy Stone. Here's a snippet of the article:

"Lucy Stone, a pioneer feminist and abolitionist, was the first American woman to keep her birth name at marriage in 1855. Shortly before her marriage, she reportedly wrote to her future husband, saying, "A wife should no more take her husband's name than he should hers. My name is my identity and must not be lost." Her husband supported this decision but others did not, and it caused scandal throughout Stone’s life. When women were given a limited right to vote in 1879, Stone was refused this right unless she used her husband’s name. She also found that her signature was not considered valid on legal documents, unless she signed as “Lucy Stone, married to Henry Blackwell.”  "

Ofcourse, things have changed now and the society are a lot more open about that kind of stuff. While that story about Lucy Stone is about keeping her maiden name it's as equally relevant to hyphenating.

I must admit that I have thought about hyphenating myself because of the cutesy factor. I mean, why wouldn't I, hyphenating is the trend nowadays and you're branded as an outcast if you deviate from it. But then again I have to consider the practical side of things and have tried to look at the pros and cons of hyphenating which I will be enumerating.

One. Truncation.

If I decided to be a HMW (hyphenated married woman) I have to prepare myself for truncation issues. Specially when dealing with insurance companies that are still using Mainframes and have very limited character length. Or if your name had to be printed in, for example, an insurance card which can only hold a certain number of characters. So if, for example my married name is Cristina Dimagiba-PurificaciontalesChorba it has a tendency to become Dimagiba-Puri. Ofcourse I'm exaggerating but my point is do I really want to see my husband's cute surname chopped off on one of my plastic cards (ie: insurance card, drivers license, credit card, etc)?

Two. Online Forms boo-boo.
Institutional systems, including mail, doctor’s offices, credit cards, and standardized forms tended to pose problems for people with hyphenated names. Some online forms do not have enough spaces for hyphenated names and doesn't quite make it intact because it does not allow the hyphen as a character.


Three.Hyphenated names are also reported to agitate or confuse many people.
Imagine trying to tell a customer support person on the phone your hyphenated name. You would end up having a surname of PurificacionDashDaltasheleshki instead of Purificacion-Daltasheleshki.Yes, as in the word "dash" or hyphen, whatever. I have an email address with an underscore and there were a few times that my email address became somethingUnderscoresomethingelse instead of something_somethingelse when I was trying to recite that to someone over the phone,for real. I don't want to have that same dilemma with my married name, thank you very much.


Four. Email address premature concatenation.
So my new name is now Marriana Purificacion-Daltasheleshki. Am I ready to cringe once I see my work email as mpurificaciondal@matian.com? Nope, I don't think so too.



Five. My kids and husband will have the same surnames, I won't.
So I will be Marriana Purificacion-Daltasheleshki, my husband Eduard Daltasheleshki and my kids Caitlyn Daltasheleshki and Marvin Daltasheleshki. *Sings* "Alin, alin, alin ang naiba, isipin kung alin ang naiba." I would feel like an outcast! Sure I can have my kids have my maiden name but honestly, I'd rather have my kids carry their dad's surname. Why, for less obvious motive: to hold men accountable for their offspring. Also, so that my kids won't be confused as "anak sa pagkadalaga" (kids outside marriage).

Sure, I can also just hyphenate my kids surname like mine but I'm not barbaric. Imagine my kid, standing in class on his/her first day of school and introducing him/herself. "Hi, my name is Caitlyn PurificacionDashDaltasheleshki". Poor kid. And what happens if my kid marries someone with hyphenated last names too? Now my kids will have four surnames. At some point those kind of naming practice can really become unsustainable.

I also don't want to confuse my kids why their mommy has a different surname from them.

Here's another thing. Having a different name with my kids might arouse suspicions, leading to airport frisks and other indignities, just to name a few. Imagine the inconvenience of being challenged at the airport to prove whether or not I am my kids' mother. Although, this kind of situation is more likely to happen if you keep your maiden name but still, there are some "uninformed" people out there who thinks they know better




I could go on and on but I thought these are some of the common but overlooked scenarios. So in conclusion *drum roll please*,

I have nothing against feminism but if it's not life threatening then it's not worth the aggravation. Besides, isn’t marriage supposed to be about partnership? Doesn’t love means loving everything about another person, including their name? I'm all for equal rights for men and women and I am only one in a long line of strong women wanting to feel equal in this symbolic way and I do understand the importance of keeping your identity even after marriage and all those stuff but I have to pick my fight, something had to give. After all, there are other ways I can prove I am my own person even after I change my name.

But hey, to each his own. Don't get me wrong, I still think hyphenating is a brave thing to do and is cute and is a growing trend, and your stalkers, i mean acquaintances, can easily find you because you have your maiden name still attached to your married name.....but in my humble opinion, the cuteness doesn't make up for some levels of stress attached to it.

So in the name of world peace and healthy blood pressure, I'll do what's best for me.


disclaimer: the names i used are fictitious names.


photo credits from: http://www.futurity.org/

half of first quarter timeline

i purchased a planner a few weeks ago because i'm starting to feel the pressure of the DIYs i have commissioned myself to do plus some other wedding details that i've been obssessing about....



so far here's what have happened.

feb 12  - finished fourth phase of our DIY civil wedding invitations (the boxes)

on DIY monograms

last year i attempted to create our monogram (see here) but wasn't really happy about it so i decided to move on to my other DIY projects....tonight, i don't know what possessed me, i took another shot on creating a monogram and here's what i came up with...

so much better than the first attempt....

exactly 100 days before the "i do"

it's 100 days to go before our big day!

100 days from now, my one syllable surname would become two and with more Rs, which is something i'm not thrilled about (i have problems with Rrrrrrs, haha).....

100 days from now i'll be walking bare footed on the sand of Cape May, NJ, weather permitting (God, oh please, God)...... maybe i should ask someone to donate eggs to Sta. Clara monastery for me, hmmm.... haha

100 days from now i'll get to show off my flowy white dress....and hopefully i have lost 10lbs by then, argh!

100 days from now i would exchange funny vows (yes, funny, we're both goofy, lol) and mushy vows with someone.... uh-huh, we'll be writing our own vows.....

100 days from now i'll have additional nouns as relatives..... father-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, aunt-in-law, pets-in-law, etc.....

100 days from now i'll see the h2b wearing a wedding ring because he's married --- to me.

and most importantly, 100 days from now i'll be someone's wife......

wow.

Vintage Spool DIY WYB (Paris themed)

In my previous blog, I showed my beach themed, message in a bottle DIY WYB . I used that for our civil beach wedding female entourage WYB. Here's another one I made for my other set of female entourage.

Because our church wedding theme in the Philippines is about travelling and because we are adding some Parisian elements to it I figured I should do a WYB that's kinda dramatic. And that inspired this project (click photo above for better view).


Our church wedding's motif in the Philippines, by the way, is peach and yellow that's why there's a peach tiny flower and yellow ribbon around that WYB and ofcourse I have the Eiffel Tower charms (bought it from etsy.com, look for happysupplies).

Now, I am going to share how I did this. First, the materials you need.

1. Vintage spool.
2. Paris rubber stamp (you can get one from amazon).
3. Yellow ribbon (or any other ribbon color of your choice).
4. Lace that's 1/2 inch wide. I used up just less than a yard for my 7 spools.
5. Tiny flowers of your choice.
6. Eiffel tower charms.
7. Black and red stamp pad (or any color you want).
8. Cream colored fabric (or any other fabric you want as long as it's plain).
9. Alphabet rubber stamps
10. Needle and thread.
11. Fabric glue.


Now for the steps.

1. Remove the stickers on the spool. Dab it with wet cloth if there are still some difficult to remove residue left.
2. Let the spool dry then bring out your Paris rubber stamp and stamp both sides of the spool base.

3. Measure the width of the body of the spool and cut your fabric accordingly.  How long your fabric would be would depend on how long the name of the recipient is or how big or small the alphabet rubber stamp you have. I would advise you to do at least one mock-up spool WYB before you start this project in full throttle.
4. Stamp one side of your fabric using your Paris rubber stamp.

5. Then flip the fabric and start stamping that other side with the name of your recipient and the role you want him/her in.
6. Glue the end of the fabric on the spool. Make sure the part you glue in is the end of the sentence/question part. I just think it's logical if your recipient sees his/her name first while she unscrolls the spool.
7. Then measure the circumference of the spool and cut your lace accordingly. You would need 2 of that lace per spool. One for the top and another for the bottom.
8. Sew the lace in.
9. Hook your charm on the ribbon of your choice then wrap the ribbon around the spool and tie it on the spool securely.
10. Insert the tiny flower.
11. That's it your done! It's up to you how you want to package this. What I did is I bought those cheap organza cream pouch, put the spool in. As for the shipping part (in my case my entourage are in the Philippines but I am in the U.S) I got myself a bubble wrap lined enveloped and placed the organza pouch with the spool inside.


Here's my finished product.

And here is where I got that inspiration (i love etsy.com!):

i bought someone a wedding ring....

we went wedding ring shopping today.... just for the h2b.... the second engagement ring he bought me is a match set and the h2b is just hiding the matching wedding ring for now because he said he doesn't want to jinx our wedding.... we're doing the same thing we did for my official engagement ring, we'll shop together and both of us should like the ring.....


first jewelry shop we went to was koehler's in lansdale, which he playfully said is the "real" jewelry store because they've been around since dirt was invented (actually, it's just 85 years)..... i like that store..... it has lots of men's wedding rings to choose from and most of them are really nice...... we saw a lot that i like that he doesn't like and we also saw some that he likes that i don't like but we were able to find one that we both liked..... but we still want to explore our options so we went to another jewelry shop.....

we went to kay jewellers at montgomery mall...... the same place where the h2b bought all the rings he gave me............ they don't have a lot of male wedding rings to choose from but they have some decent ones and we actually saw 3 that we would want for him to try......... problem is they were excruciatingly slow.....they were attending to other customers but it's taking them forever to finish one customer...... i got impatient plus they looked like they're ignoring us so i told the h2b to just go to the jewelry shop next door which is gordon's.....

gordon's too doesn't have a lot of men's wedding ring choices but the h2b tried a couple...... we're ready to give up on that store when the sales lady who's waiting on us picked up a ring and asked the h2b to try it......... as soon as the saleslady handed the ring to the h2b we both started making faces........... the ring is exactly the type of ring that the h2b said he wouldn't pick out  but the h2b still tried it on just to be polite and shock of all shock, he actually liked the ring......

i was so surprised that i kept asking him if he's sure, but he was just giggling like a girl over that ring, lol...... he said he's shocked himself  and that he never imagined himself picking that ring but when he tried it on it just looks good on him...... he said there's something about the pattern and lines that makes it so attractive......

i must admit, that's not the kind of ring i would pick out for him...... i mean, don't get me wrong, it looks nice and everything and it's not something i would get embarrassed about when he started wearing it but i just have a different image on my brain on how his wedding ring would look like........... but man, that look on his face when he tried that ring on is just priceless..... i just don't have the heart to let that ring get away so i just told him he should get that ring and so we did..... and i offered to pay for it.....

so yes, i bought someone a wedding ring and that someone is my husband-to-be......that is one of the nicest feeling in the world.....