Age before Beauty??

I want to first start out by saying thank you to everyone who offered comments and help on the wedding dress dilemma. Everyday I come closer and closer to realizing that I know which dress is my dress. I, myself, won't even know though until I walk into that store. The best I can do right now is be almost 100% sure...

But anyway, the point of this post is to beg even more advice/comments/commiseration:

In your relationship(s) who gets listed first?

Well???

When you post pictures up on Facebook, is it him and me? or is it me and him?

Is it Beauty and the Beast?

Or is it Tarzan and Jane?

(Incidentally, whacking me upside the head and dragging me to his cave is how Kyle won my heart)




Is it Lady and the Tramp?

Or is it Romeo and Juliet??

(Yup, that version... What kind of sick twisted person would have her wake up before he was dead?? That's not Tragedy... it's Torture!)

Do you prefer Bonny and Clyde? or Sid and Nancy???

For us personally, it's always been Kyle and Ashley. I'm not a ring leader. Kyle is more decisive, more direct, more commanding (he whacked me upside the head and dragged me to his cave for pete's sake). Our friends always refer to us as Kyle and Ashley, and I'm completely okay with it. I'm a little old-fashioned when it comes to him in that I treat him like the big 'bring-bacon' man and I would be perfectly happy being the little stay at home wife with a cocktail waiting for him at home every evening (you know the one; she's wearing a cute little apron over her cocktail dress, she's wearing make-up and heels and has just finished vacuum cleaning ;)). But for awhile now, as we've been planning the wedding, things have changed, not because I'm doing all the planning, not because I'm the woman and the woman cares more what the names look like, but because convention always puts my name first! What can I do? Invitation wording always reads "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter Jane Smith to Tarzan Apeman" or if you go non-traditional, I've still always seen the woman's name first, whether you do a "together with their parents" or a straight up "Jane Smith and Tarzan Apeman request the honor of your presence..."

So what's the big deal? Well I ordered some address labels because Shutterfly was having a deal and they were free... I think we're just going to print (like from a printer) our address on our envelopes, so I don't need these, but they were free. Anyway, I ordered them as "Ashley and Kyle" with our address underneath and he was just a touch offended by it. There was a hint of amusement in his tone, but he seemed to imply that his manhood was hurt... Now this sounds just like what a man who has always been listed first would say, and for that reason, I almost scoffed at him for being presumptuous but instead I tried to explain that this was how it was in weddingland.

Then he brought up our monogram... We've decided to go with a monogrammed seal for sealing our envelopes and he said it should read KJA instead of AJK, with the J being larger in the middle. His reasoning was that we could use it after the wedding too and then it would be in the order that it should be in, Kyle before Ashley. I decided to let go the fact that I'd love to see if we ever actually need to seal anything in the future, but regardless, I was kinda' struck by all this... where was it coming from??

He says that he wants people to say "Oh will Kyle actually be there?" but the best (read:funniest) explanation I can think of comes direct from Tarzan and Jane. He's stuck either in caveman mode or in the Mad Men era. Now, before vilifying him, please understand that he is a wonderful, woman-loving, non-chauvanistic man, these ideas are deep down in him I think, and this is how they manifest themselves. He would prefer I think of him as a Romeo, one who would die for love or something like that, and that's why his name should go first. This is also true and he would do anything for me, but still, what still makes me chuckle a little is how he actually felt his manhood questioned a little.

To Kyle, if you are reading: Everyone who will be at the wedding knows that you are always first, I am not opposed to it. The wedding has always been kind of a bride's day, ya' know? You are my Romeo, not my Beast or Tramp. And if it will make you feel any better, just look at it this way: Age before Beauty ;)

I'll let you all know if I win this one...