Back before I was born, my mom was something of a trailblazer in her rural community by keeping her maiden name after she married my dad.
It may not sound like a big deal now, but it worked our relatives and neighbors into enough of a frenzy that some managed to forget they attended my parents’ wedding and asked my grandma if they were “living in sin.”
Over the next 30 years, we would see a lot more couples decide that how a marriage is traditionally “supposed” to work didn’t make sense to them and do things their way. And really, it’s a little jarring to consider how long it took for that cultural shift to happen since every marriage is different and the way a couple goes about it only matters insofar as the couple is happy with it.
But at the same time, one story serves as a good reminder that this also applies when a couple does want to do things the old-fashioned way.
On February 22, Sam and Monica Patterson would officially tie the knot.
By that point , the couple had been chronicling their romantic adventures on TikTok for well over a year, so that special day also came as a cause for celebration among their 2.2 million followers.
Especially since one wouldn’t have to follow them for long to see how cute they are together.
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And by March 13, the couple hit another milestone that they both seemed very excited about.
As they documented in a YouTube video , they had filed the paperwork for Monica to change her last name from Gartner to Patterson, which would mean she would have the same name as Sam’s grandmother.
But while this made the name change all the more special to her, it apparently aroused some of their viewers’ suspicions.
Although most commenters were as excited as they were, the couple noticed that some would say things like, “How dare he make you change your name?”
As Sam told Insider, “People kept saying I was forcing her into it. And she’s just like, ‘No, I just want the same last name as his grandma.'”
For her own part, Monica wanted to make it clear that not only was this a decision she made herself, but one she truly believed in.
As she put it, “I love my family, but it’s my belief that when you get married you change your name.”
She also believes that if she felt differently, Sam wouldn’t have been anywhere near as controlling about it as some are making him out to be.
In her words, “I’m sure if I had wanted to keep my last name, we would have had that discussion. I’m not being forced, I’m not being dominated…I’m so happy.”
h/t: Insider
