20 days

December 10, 2010

Today, I talked to my fiancé about my change of name after the wedding. Don't get me wrong, this is not an issue for me...and it's not trivial either. Significant and beautiful changes come in after the wedding. Marriage takes charge the moment we become husband and wife. This is what Jeff and I are more excited about, actually.

I have a lot of married friends, who have chosen to be hyphenated. It's the trend nowadays. This is common among famous women like news anchors, public officials, actresses, etc. For some couples, hyphenating can be a compromise. On the other hand, I have some friends who went to the other direction of keeping their maiden names and not placing their husband's family names after that small but terrible punctuation mark called a HYPHEN. And I know a few (VERY few, actually), who have bravely taken the traditional way - no maiden name. This is perhaps, the most acceptable among the three options.

I've read a lot of articles and forums about the changing of names among newly-married women. It got me really interested. Some comments are very powerful and emotional especially towards the hyphenated names. Different folks, different strokes. That's all I can say. It goes without saying that we should always respect what others have chosen for themselves.

I choose to add my husband's family name WITHOUT being hyphenated. I have good reasons for it. I'm not a famous person so my husband's family name next to mine won't really create any confusion. No hyphen needed. Call me traditional now, but I still want to keep my maiden name. I want that 'bond' with my family (including my Dad and Tien) to stay until the day I die and I need to preserve my family name while taking his. And of course, I would gladly take my soon-to-be-husband's family name. BERNARDEZ. Believe me, there's just more to it than being his Mrs. For one, being 'officially' part of his family is a great blessing to me. No hyphen needed. I'm going to be married to him COMPLETELY. No hyphen needed.