Wedding When should I change my name?

[musincy]

Right now I''m leaning towards waiting to change my name until we''re back from our honeymoon. We''re going to have to get passports, plane tickets, etc. well in advance of the trip, so they''ll be in my old name. I think it would be less of a hassle to do it that way... is that normal? Do most people wait until after? The only thing I think will be weird is that we''ll be married but I won''t actually be Mrs. Newlastname yet!

This may be a dumb question, but is it a problem getting your name changed if you get married in one state, but live in another and change it there?

 

[zoebartlett]

We got married in a different state than where we live. I think I waited about a month after returning from our honeymoon to deal with changing my name. I''m still in the process of doing so, but I now have a new license. There''s so many people you have to contact, and you need to bring with you (or send in?) a copy of your marriage license. I had gotten a new passport when I thought we were going to one place for our honeymoon. They told me that I had about 3 months (or was it 6??) to change my name on the passport and get another new one issued without having to pay the regular cost.

 

[Pandora II]

In the UK you can change your name on your passport 3 months before the wedding - the marriage license people just have to sign a form for you to say that you are getting married.

I started changing mine after the wedding. Total nightmare - do not do everything at once. I had problems because I needed to provide specific ID for the postman to have certain things delivered and those documents were either away being changed or still in my old name so not acceptable...

I''m still changing things now...

 

[LaraOnline]

I live in Australia, but I travelled overseas on my maiden name passport, and didn't change my name until I returned. Didn't have time to do any of that before hand, anyway. It didn't change the experience of my honeymoon in any real way.

 

[muffindowd]

I was wondering the same thing!! We are honeymooning in Napa, so passports won''t be an issue, but I think I''m going to wait until after the honeymoon to officially change my name too. We have a couple days off work when we''re back to settle in, so I''ll start the process then...although I can''t wait to officially be a Mrs!!

 

[Krissie]

I will probably change mine in a year or so. We travel a lot internationally and have to go to 3 weddings in the UK alone next spring/summer ... so it will probably be next autumn when we take a break from travel and I can get everything sorted.

 

[neatfreak]

DO IT AFTER! Trust me on this one, there are many horror stories about trying to do it before a honeymoon or other significant trip out of the country. Just wait until you have a number of months where you likely won't be traveling internationally or needing to sign any big documents like a mortgage. It can take months to sort all the name change stuff out, even in the easiest of states.

And you can of course start GOING by your new last name even before you change it legally KWIM?

 

[marchswallowbird]

Yes, do it after! You will avoid lots of potential airport/travel delays. You will confuse the heck out of the TSA screeners if your ticket is in one name and your legal documents are in another.

 

[Harleigh]

WAIT TILL AFTER!!!! I cannot stress this enough! I am currently in the process of changing my name, and I swear I could just kick myself for even bothering! My marriage license from Maui was supposed to take at least 4 months to arrive, so I didn''t plan to do anything until that came (couldn''t really, as a matter of fact!) and it came last week. I have discovered you can''t do anything without your marriage license, and then you can''t do anything without a new SS card, and then nothing without a new driver''s license.

Did any of that make sense???

I now have a new SS card but have to wait about a week to receive a form I need from DMV...it''s quite a hassle, but trying to work out the HO insurance on my vacant house is even worse, which could be more difficult due to my name change...arghhh!

I could have done without this stress...what a pain in the patooty!

(I''m sure it will all be worth it in the end, right? Right???