Kirsty Bosley: I do! A vow to keep girl power when I take my fiancé's name

It wasn't a silly joke one, like 'if we're both still single by the time we're 40 shall we get married?' kind of a proposal. He had a ring and everything, so I said yes (it's a really cool ring, and he's a really cool boy).

With that came serious life discussions. We'd had them before, in between moments of playing video games and making up stupid songs. But now they were more important than ever.

And importantly, will I change my surname? This is a cause for concern among many feminists, and one which stirs up hot rows. By changing your name, some believe, you're giving up a part of your identity and taking on part of someone else's. Changing your name to his is a manoeuvre that smacks of ownership, seems to be the concern. I, respectfully, disagree.

In a world where brides wear white despite having their chezza popped round the back of a Biffa after a night drinking 20/20 years before, traditions are flexible – notions, not rules. Wearing white doesn't represent virginity in a way that it once did, and changing your name to your husbands is not a indication of ownership. Unless your husband tells you that by doing it he will start telling you what you can and can't wear, in which case chuck that ring at him and make like Forrest Gump – run and don't stop for ages.

For me, it'll be a pleasure to change my name from Miss B to Mrs Q. Not only will I sound more like a James Bond character than I did before, but it will mean that our status as a little family will be further cemented. Then when we have kids, we all have the same name. There's something charming about that, in my opinion, and it makes filling out greetings cards and forms a little bit easier.

I'm not saying that by having a different surname to your children is weird, it's not. It's more common than ever these days as less people choose to get married and begin families in their own way. I respect that, but for me, the name change is going ahead.

This will mean the sad loss of my nickname, however. Everyone from my boyfriend to my boss calls me Bozzers. It's my Twitter handle – my digital ID. I feel a bit sad about dropping it.

My surname means very little to me. For many years, being a Bosley was a curse, tying me to a family that just wasn't mine. I didn't want to be 'a Bosley'. I wasn't of the Bosley's – I was just lumbered with the name and couldn't afford to change it by Deed Poll. Over the years, I've become more comfortable with it as I've made it my own. Now it's just my surname, not my 'family name'. When people started calling me Bozzers, the family part of it grew even more distant and I became happier and more comfortable about being called it.

Dropping my surname in lieu of Andy's will be the first time that I get a surname I am truly proud to have. It will be my very first family name – ownership is not part of the equation.

The tradition of being 'given away' is one that I'm not sure I'm going to adhere to. Not because it smacks of ownership and patriarchy (it does a bit, but as we've acknowledged, it doesn't actually mean anything these days). I'm not being given away because I don't have a father to 'give me away' to Andrew. So I'm just going to stroll on down the aisle with my homies, like a scene from The Warriors. Only without weapons.

Andy didn't ask anyone's permission to marry me before he did so. Not only does he never do as he's told anyway, but also it seemed like another, outdated tradition that just didn't fit in with our vibe.

However, I can understand why people do. My friend Dan asked his now father-in-law whether he could marry his beloved partner Kate before he popped the question. He's no chauvinist, and his intention was not one of ownership. He's the father of a little girl for whom he clearly wants nothing but the absolute best. He lets her dress up as Fireman Sam or Hello Kitty. Together they play whatever games make her happy – he doesn't force her into being anything that she's not, and I'm certain that he doesn't have a sense of ownership over her.

So when he asked his pops-to-be if it was cool for him to propose to Kate in the years BB (before baby), he didn't do so to ascertain whether he could buy her in exchange for a few goats.

"Her father is the only other man in the universe who loves her as much as I do," he says simply. "He deserved to know and give his opinion. For the record I wanted to make sure her mother and sister were all right with what I had planned too." It was as simple as that – a courtesy and a tradition, nothing set in stone.

I think that people are quick to pooh-pooh a lot of the traditions that many hold dear in the name of feminism. There's a particular type of campaigner (I won't say feminist, because I don't believe them to be so) who are quick to point out the error in how other women choose to do things. I think they need to be a bit more supportive of each woman's decision, even if their decision is steeped in historical chauvinism.

I'm not sure which traditionally patriarchal rituals we'll undertake at our own wedding. What I do know is that there's no way Andrew is going to be able to lift me over the threshold, especially after eating loads of cake, as I fully intend to do.

Maybe I'll lift him up? That'd be a laugh.