To expect wedding cards to the both of us not to be solely addressed (by the looks of it) to my new dh?

[treacleturkey]

That's it, really. We got married a couple of months ago, very few guests, and are still receiving cards from well-wishers - which is really nice of them.

So why does it annoy me SOOOOO much that the cards are addressed to 'Mr and Mrs (his initial) HIS Surname'?

I've kept my surname (why would anyone change theirs in this day and age?) and, surprise surprise, my own initial! So why are our cards mostly addressed to DH??? GGrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

These people aren't writing to complain about your wedding but to congratulate you! It's not their fault that they didn't know whether you would be keeping or changing your name - that seems to be a bloody minefield these days.

Wish we had made it clearer as we had all sorts of name combinations - including Mr and Mrs double barrelled - which was a pain when cashing in all the cheques lovely people gave us.

I've kept my name but we had some many cheques to Mr&Mrs that we ended up opening an account just to bank all the cheques. Totally our fault for not being clear in the first place (or writing a stupid poem to do so )

OP has every right to not take her husbands name. Just as I and many other women have the right to willingly take her husband a name and NOT BE PATRONISED OR INSULTED BECAUSE THEY DID. As for the assumption that career women wouldn't do such an oppressive backwards thing as change her surname - do me a favour. I'm a qualified chartered accountant who retrained in her 30s to become an IB DP Maths teacher. Screw you. It's your attitude that does other women no favours. Not whether they've decided to take their husbands name or not.

I didn't have any strong feelings about this before I came on this thread but having read about 100000 posts saying I should've been thankful for the wrongly addressed congratulations cards we got, I'm now feeling a bit miffed. And glad I stayed Dr Toomuch. Getting a PhD was difficult, getting married was a piece of piss.

Op, I find it very interesting that you didn't mention you added note advising people that you would not be mrsdh in your op. Which would have perhaps changed the responses. As then it would be clear people were just ignoring your, fairly simple request.

For the record. I took dhs name, I also own my own business, dh does all the cooking, we split child care 50/50, in short we have a very equal marriage. I also post on mumsnet during the day. I am not a 1950shouse wife and the assumption that women who CHOOSE to take their partners names are some how an instrument of female opression, can't possibly have careers or have an opinion is disgusting and most definitely anti feminist.

Op, if you put notes in and people ignored it yanbu, otherwise yabu. You are also bu, if you think most women don't do it and the ones who do are oppressed, not capable of making their own decisions, having their own opinions and careers. Its a choice, let people make a choice. Removing a women's choice by belittling her is definitely not feminism.

YANBU at all.

Getting the addressee's name right is pretty fundamental in sending a card. I'm pretty sure any book on etiquette would agree that.

Even without any information, it'd be a bit risky to use Mrs Husbandname as at least Ms Yourname was your name before the marriage, so is at worst out of date rather than non-existent IYSWIM.

In your case, you had written to them and made it clear what name you'd be using post marriage in the last correspondence you'd had. In those circumstances it either says, "here's a card, I didn't bother reading yours", or "here's a card, I don't approve of and won't acknowledge your decision not to follow the convention I expect".

In either case, it dilutes the nice gesture of the card.

It is horribly common for this sort of thing to happen though and will continue to do so while high proportions of women become Mrs Hisname on marriage.

I hated my dh's surname so we changed ours totally that's love for you
I couldn't care less how letters are addressed as I open all the post anyway

YANBU. Your name is important to you .I so agree with your ''why would anyone change theirs in this day and age'' comment. People should respect that. It is no big effort to address an envelope with both names on it, surely? And not a good idea to just assume that every woman takes her husband's name on marriage.

Yabu. Its addressed to both of you!

I disagree londonrach. Afaik the wife of mr john smith is not automaticaly mrs john smith or even mrs smith. Maybe in another century.

Toomuchtooold if you have a PhD and you are married then the correct form of address would be Dr Toomuchtooold and Mr DP. Dr trumps a Mr! Even if you are a lowly woman.

I know this as researching our wedding invites recently my gma made a fuss about how my invites weren't from Mr and Mrs E Ben parents of Ethel B(for example). My mother quickly whipped out Debrettes and pointed out that the invites should have been from Dr N Thomas and Mr E Ben parents of Ethel B (for example).

My gma has not commented on invite etiquette since!