Andrew ...... RUN!

He has no idea what is is getting himself into.

As many of you already know, I'm getting hitched. Deciding to get married brought up a lot of issues for me - politically and personally. Folks had a bunch of questions in comments, so I thought I would use these as a jumping off point to talk about issues of feminism, marriage, and - the current bane of my existence - weddings.

Hara says, "I hope that if you are considering changing your name it is one you both create for the two of you to change to (like a combo, but shorter) otherwise, I suggest not making your name change to his last name."

I'm keeping my last name. I think hyphenation is nice - and that's probably the route we'll go with kids - but I like my last name. A bunch. I've even considered adding in my mother's last name as well, as a little "fuck you" to the patriarchy, but I think Jessica Michelucci Valenti is too much of a mouthful, even for one with as big a mouth as me.

On the issue of same sex marriage, frye886 says, "It seems to me a more powerful action by many couples would be to refuse to get married and publicly state the reasons why not."

Andrew and I discussed not getting married until everyone could, and we think that's an understandable choice. Instead, we're trying use our impending marriage as a pro-active way to talk about same sex marriage among our friends and family, and being mindful of the inequity in every step our process. (For example, in our engagement announcement we asked anyone considering getting us a gift to instead donate to an organization fighting for same sex marriage rights; we're planning on saying something about it as part of our ceremony; and we've taken the advice of several commenters and will have donation cards to said orgs instead of favors.)

Several of you also got into it about dresses - whether the traditional white dress actually did signify "purity," etc. I'm kind of ambivalent about it, but I ended up getting a not-quite white dress (don't want to give too much away in case the boy is reading!) that I bought from a place where all the money goes to charity.

So that's where I'm at so far. I'm sure things will continue to come up and that I'll continue to try and find ways to subvert them or add a little dash of feminism.

Here is its own little circle of h311,

In the meantime, does anyone have any feminist wedding planning tips they'd like to share?

Hat tip K-lo.