Wedding Blog

I just realized after seeing Mrs. Onion’s post that I never posted an update after my first incredibly horrendous trip to the DMV in NYC.

[Superbrief recap: a horrible horrible *@&%$*#! at the NYC DMV told me that I had to hyphenate my maiden and last names whether I wanted to or not since I had listed my maiden name as a "middle" name on my marriage license, but "we know" it’s really a last name since it was on my old identification, and proceeded to taunt me cruelly for politely asking if I couldn’t keep it as a middle name, as was stated on my marriage certificate with no problems whatsoever.]

After I got my correct name on my social security card in the mail, I felt more confident in my ability to “prove” my new name was valid as shown on the marriage certificate since I had the whole thing written out on two Big Important Official documents (First Middle Maiden Newlast, where Newlast is my only “last” name and my maiden became a second middle name), but I still wasn’t sure I was brave enough to face the demons of the NYC DMV again.


<picture from epilogue.net. not an actual DMV employee.>

I also found out that the “rule” with which I was taunted was NOT a DMV rule, but a NYC marriage bureau rule. If you get you marriage license in New York City, you can’t have “two last names” so your only options are to:

1. Not have your maiden name anywhere in your post-marriage name
2. Keep your maiden name as your last name, and not have your husband’s name anywhere
3. Hyphenate

…and that’s it. According to my online research, the reason is that they claim they are not authorized to change “middle” names, only last names, so they can’t give you a new middle name, even if it was previously a part of your legal name. Which seriously, is bunk. That’s legal (and incredibly common) everywhere else. But whatever.

So I decided that my best bet DMV-wise was to just skip all the way out of New York City to a place where they didn’t even know about this silly nonsense rule, and since the town clerk where I got my marriage license happily wrote my name out just the way I wanted it, I thought that would be a good place to start!

For Labor Day weekend, we trekked up to the Adirondacks late late Thursday night so that we’d be there when the DMV was open on Friday during business hours.

When I got to the supercute county building Friday morning, there was literally one person in line in front of me, so as soon as I’d filled out my form, I stepped up to talk to Cheri (got her name this time!). I explained the problem and she instantly understood exactly what I wanted to do, but wasn’t quite sure if the documentation I had was enough to change my current post-marriage name (”Maiden-Newlast”) in the DMV system, since this was no longer a simple maiden-to-married name change. She asked a coworker who also wasn’t entirely sure, and then said she’d have to call the main Albany office to double check, but she was optimistic that she would be able to do it since it really appeared that the NYC DMV had done it incorrectly so she should hopefully be able to fix it.

Once on hold with the Albany line (for DMV employees only) she said that it might take a long time since it was around lunchtime, so if we had a local phone number she could just give us a call after she got an answer, but we decided to wait it out. After about 45 minutes on hold, she finally talked to someone in Albany. The highlight of the call was when she yelled “Well I know that and you know that, but they still wrote it that way on her license!!” Cheri and the Albany rep agreed that my license had been issued incorrectly in NYC (), and the Albany person authorized her to make the fix!

After filling in all the appropriate paperwork (The license will now say “First M. M. Newlast” instead of spelling out both middle & maiden names because they can’t write out two middle names, so you must use initials if you have more than one middle name), she took my picture, and asked which one I liked best (!), then let me try to sign my name on about 6 different signature cards since I kept involuntarily writing my full maiden name instead of just the initial. She was extremely nice and helpful and it was all in all a very pleasant experience - and I finally got my license straightened out!! VICTORYYY!!! Take THAT NYC DMV rep from hell!

There is also a really entertaining post-script to my whole saga…. After I first blogged about my horrible experience at the NYC DMV, a reporter from SmartMoney (the Wall Street Journal’s magazine) contacted me for an interview for an article she was writing about the DMV!! She said it’s mainly an informative piece, with a few anecdotes for color, so it’s not really “about” me, but I still feel very special. The only sad part is that the fact checker called to confirm the details right before I went upstate and got my sweet sweet victory!! I wrote the reporter back to ask her to include how Cheri saved the day and the head office in Albany explicitly said that the NYC DMV was completely wrong, but unfortunately the story had already gone to press. But look for me in November’s issue!!