Weddingbee Blog

I know that taking your husband’s name can be a pretty controversial topic out there in the wedding-blog world. I’ve read so much about both sides of this argument: women who feel that their name has been their identities for so long it would be next to impossible to give them up, and others who choose to honor their husbands by taking their last names to signify the start of a new family. I, for one, am of the latter group. I couldn’t be happier about officially changing my name the moment we get back from our honeymoon. That’s not to say, however, that I don’t understand and appreciate the other side of the argument. Because I totally do.

My name, the name I’ve had my entire life, is pretty awesome. Bear with me here; I’m going to tell y’all my real name. Please don’t get all crazy on me.

Jenna Jones. It’s just cool. People have always commented on how great it is for one reason or another. It flows well, I’ve got the whole double-J thing going on, it’s a strong name, it sounds like a porn movie star name, etc. I’ll be the first to say that I’m pretty attached to it. It’s been mine for nearly 26 years, and I’m going to be sad to let it go. But I’m happier about taking Mr. Oatmeal’s name than I’m sad about losing the Jones. Here are a few reasons:

1. My new name will still allow me to keep my initials, and my double-J. JJ is here to stay.
2. It might sound even cooler than Jenna Jones.
3. I have a coworker named Jenn Jones, and we are sent each other’s e-mails, like, a million times a week.

There are more reasons than that, but you get the drift. So what prompted me to write about this topic? Sushi. Mr. Oatmeal and I had sushi a few weeks ago at a little place in Clovis called Ooi. It’s one of our favorite sushi places, and they let you write on the wall! Two of the walls in the restaurant look like a crazy, graffitied hot mess. So we’re sitting there, waiting for our food, when we see this for the first time (and we eat there ALL the time):

{Personal photo}

That’s Mr. Oatmeal’s Uncle Steve and Aunt Melinda! Ha! So it got us thinking why we had never written on the infamous wall. So…we did! Or, I did. After much debate that’s way too boring to go into, we decided on using Mr. Oatmeal’s/my soon-to-be last name.

Do you see it?! It’s sort of incognito. Confession: I wrote over someone else’s writing. But it wasn’t really my fault: they used pencil and it was barely legible. I promise, our name is there. Unfortunately, Morgan C. already wrote over us. How rude, huh? But it is there, under my crappy editing job.

Well, that was a really roundabout way to talk about my almost- last name. I feel so giddy over taking my new name. Is that lame?

I know that this is a very personal decision; I just wanted to let you in on why I’m making the change. What side of the argument are you on?