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“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet”
The ultimate question that a non-British girl must face when getting married in the UK is: To change or not to change her name.
I still have no idea what I’ll do. The problem is that I never had any type of mental preparation for this. What I mean is that British girls KNOW that eventually they will change their name to their husband’s when they marry. They spend their whole teenage life imagining what their name would sound like if they married one boy or another: “Mmm.. Mrs. Susan Fitzgerald sounds SO much better than Mrs. Susan Smith!” So when they actuallt have to dispose of their family name, they have no problems whatsoever.
On the other hand, Spanish people don’t have that tradition of changing your family name. The name you’re given at birth will be yours until you die. So I’ve had 30 years of my life to get very attached to my surnames. I’ve been Maria La Chica for such a long time that calling myself anything other than that sounds strange!
But then I think: what’s in a name? It’s not the name that matters but who you are. I am going to be the same person whatever the surname: La Chica or Payne. To be honest, one of the most important reasons why I am a bit reluctant to change the surname is because of the burocratic nightmare it could become. But I assume that there are procedures in place in the Spanish Embassy, as I don’t think I am the first Spaniard to marry a Briton!
Now that we’ve got a date for the wedding (06.06.09) I am going to have to set myself an ultimatum, a date by which I must have decided what I’ll do. I think Christmas is a good time, plus I’ll have the chance to tell my family my decision!
We had news last week that my family doesn’t want a wedding in Spain. It is brilliant news as it will take lots of pressure off my shoulders, but it also brings on one major problem: Where to accommodate so many Spanish guests?
Foxhills would have been okay in this respect, as they have a hotel, but their prices are so prohivitive that it would have made the whole thing very expensive. And Silvermere doesn’t even have accommodation, the nearest hotel being a Hilton and we already know that they are not particularly cheap.
So we kept on looking on other options and I came across Gorse Hill, a big hotel in Woking that have only recently got a marriage licence and are offering great “exclusivity” offers for this year.
It’s quite a big house, although not the ostentatious type (certainly nothing like Foxhills). It’s nicely decorated (it would have Tito Pepe seal of approval) and it feels cosy without feeling cramped. The most important bit is that they have 50 hotel rooms that will come very handy when we have to accommodate so many overseas guests!
We went in today to have a nose around and had the chance to speak to the wedding coordinator. He told us all the story about having just received the licence to hold civil ceremonies about 3 months ago, but unfortunately the £3,000 all inclusive package advertised in their website is only valid for weddings this year. And there’s no way we could organise a wedding in less than a year! But it doesn’t look like it’s going to be much more expensive anyway. Another good point is that it looks like we are going to be able to choose the date that we want (06.06.09) for the wedding, as they’re not getting many reservations this in advance. We will be popping around on Wednesday evening again with Jon’s parents to talk figures and to have another look around the rooms and facilities, so we will know pretty soon if we have a venue or not!
