Wedding Blog

{And before you ask, yes, I promise I will post pictures — real pictures! — of our wedding just as soon as I have some and get my mind around how I want to tell the story. Really. I’m not planning to accidentally forget to give you proof that we did indeed have a wedding in spite of my procrastination and general unwillingness to do anything ahead of time. Pinky swear.}

So, along with the name-changing party going on around here (I’m trying to put a happy spin on it), we’re also buried under a mountain of post-wedding paperwork. Rather, I’m buried, since we long ago agreed that I’m the Paperwork Doing part of this couple and he’s the Dealing with Plumbing part. Fair, I think, though I still reserve the right to be resentful sometimes.

Whether or not you change your name, there are records to share, beneficiaries to update, and insurance policies to adjust. We all know that I’m no bastion of organization, but I don’t have to be. Trent over at The Simple Dollar has an astoundingly comprehensive Information Disaster Plan. Build the plan and you’ll soon discover what needs to be done post-wedding.

So far, I’ve updated the beneficiary on my life insurance policy, scheduled a meeting with the mister’s insurance agent to add me to his auto insurance, made plans to make him a secondary account holder to my savings and checking accounts (I have a billion of them), added him to my health insurance, ordered new insurance cards, scheduled physicals and dentals for both of us. My withholding was already at the married level, but his needed to be adjusted. None of that had anything to do with changing my name (which I’ll blog more about, don’t you worry).

We haven’t yet decided how (or when) to merge our finances, so in the meantime, adding each other to every account ensures that we don’t run into problems if either of us suddenly wins an all-expense paid vacation and can’t log in to the accounts (or goes to jail and needs bail money, but that’s not as fun to think about).

Do you have an information disaster plan? How are you handling post-wedding paperwork (or planning to, if you’re not married yet)?