Weddingbee Blog

Let me start out by saying this—I was never going to change my name. Never. Ever. I wasn’t going to, and I didn’t. So there’s that spoiler out of the way.

Of course, we all know that life is a little more complicated than “I’ll just make up my mind and stick to it no matter what.” Even though I may have known all of my adult life that I would never change my name, it certainly doesn’t mean that I haven’t had many, many thoughts and feelings about that decision. In fact, I often tell people that if I were writing a dissertation all over again I would want to do qualitative research on this topic. Not only am I fascinated by how and why people make this decision, but I’m also interested in whether there are ways to make this process easier and more equitable for all parties involved. Because, until the day comes when men get married and then are asked, “So, what’s your new name?” then I think we (all of us, regardless of gender) have more work to do on this issue.

Side note, and I hope this is obvious but I’m saying it anyway—I’m writing only about my own experience, thoughts, and feelings here. Of course I support, without judgment, whatever choice people want to make about their own name. That said, I do wish it were more common for men to change their names, women to keep their names, and any and all parties to create new names (hyphenated, made up, or otherwise). I have a hunch that would create so much more freedom and permission for everyone, to replace many of the judgments, assumptions and expectations that currently exist.

Certainly those gendered assumptions about names definitely affected how I felt about the name change issue in my relationship with Mr. FW. As you no doubt recall, Mr. FW was not always a mister and it’s been interesting for me to notice how his gender transition has impacted the way I was navigating my own thoughts and feelings about our names and our future family.
Read more…

For some reason, changing my name has been weighing on me more and more lately. I am a pretty traditional gal and never, ever considered doing anything else but take my husband’s name. It was a no-brainer for me. But for some reason, as of late the idea of losing my last name has started a bit of a mini-panic in me. Maybe it’s the thought that changing my name will no longer make me a member of my family, or maybe I worry that I won’t be “me.” I really can’t pinpoint it, and I’ve found these feelings to come completely out of left-field. I never in my life knew it would bother me, and it took me by surprise. So what to do?

Well Mr. Hawk is also very traditional and is not a big fan of us having different last names.
Read more…

No, that’s not a misspelling in the title. You see, today we are going to talk about Mr. Elk and his real name, which sounds just like that river in Egypt.

Ever seen I’ve known Mr Elk, his name has been frustrating to him. He likes it. It’s Irish, and his parents moved here from Ireland when they were in their 20s, so it makes sense. But for some reason, people just cannot pronounce it correctly.

Most people, for whatever reason (I think it MAY have something to do with Frasier), like to magically add an S, which appears out of thin air! Even some of my family members, who he’s known for 7 years, have been known to occasionally slip up and add the dreaded S. Other people, upon reading his name for the first time, try to make it sound like Neil… kind of. “Neeh-ahl,” they always say, in a questioning sort of way, obviously confused as they realize that probably isn’t the way to pronounce it. He has even been called Nail once or twice!

Anyway, why are we talking about this? Well…our names will be a pretty major parts of the wedding. I’m not worried about our officiant (who we’ll talk about soon enough), but the other vendors, especially our DJ, are concerning to me.
Read more…

I should probably begin this post by saying: I’m Ms. PD. It’s apparently been two months since my last post, after I got frustrated with uploading a video into my recaps. (Also, when I just wrote “recaps,” I accidentally typed “recraps.” Freudian slip from my guilt?) So, hello again! I love what you’ve done with your hair. Anyway.

All my life, I just assumed I’d take my future husband’s last name. So when I first flirted with the idea of not changing my name, it felt positively roguish. It sounds like I’ve been watching too much Downton Abbey (and I have been), but these were my father’s actual words to me when I mentioned the idea to my parents: that simply isn’t done, love. It was all very you-don’t-bring-us-honor-Mulan.

But guess what. I didn’t do it, loves. I’m still EL; he is JD; we are we; love is grand. Before our wedding, there were plenty of resources explaining how to go through the process of changing your name. There weren’t as many about the process of not changing your name. Even though you actually do nothing (no paperwork, no cost)…there’s still a process that I worked through in my mind to come to my decision. So for anyone else who is toying with the idea of not changing your name, here are some questions I asked myself and/or fielded from other people.

(Individual hangers but I’m currently using all four for myself. Worst wife ever.)

To preface: there are a lot of reasons why I chose not to change my last name:

Read more…

When it came to deciding if I should change my name, I pretty much didn’t think about it. I always planned on changing my name. I’m not sure why—mostly I think it’s because I can be pretty old-fashioned sometimes. There is a side of me that would love to be a little Suzy Homemaker stay-at-home mom raising the kids and taking care of the home.

I know a lot of people get emotional about losing their last name, but I’ve never had some crazy attachment to it. Yes, it’s my “family’s name,” but I don’t see changing your name as changing who your family is. Plus, most of my immediate family has a different last name so it never struck me as something HUGELY important. My first name is pretty original, so I’ve always identified more with that. Like Madonna or something (without the fame, fortune, and talent).

Also, my last name is really weird.
Read more…

I know that the name change topic has been greatly discussed many times here, but I wanted to get the hive’s opinion on my situation.

Mr. PF is Caucasian, with a very Caucasian last name, and I am Hispanic with a very Hispanic last name. I always figured I would take my husband’s last name, but I only recently started considering keeping my name. I know that just because you change your last name it doesn’t mean that you are losing any part of your culture, but to me it sorta feels that way. I almost feel like I am denying a part of who I am and who I have been for 25 years.

I know that changing my name isn’t going to completely change who I am. A rose is still a rose, right? But our cultural differences   has made this a difficult decision for me.
Read more…

And no, I’m not talking about Mr. Parasol. I’m still shout-it-from-the-mountains-smooshy-face in love with him.

**Just to clarify: this post is in no way anti-name changing. I truly admire all of you women and men who are excited about and follow through with the process of changing your last name, and to be honest, I’m a bit jealous!

Some of you may remember my name change post from a while back, where I wrote about why Mr. Parasol and I decided to take each other’s last  names. A lot of careful thought and discussion went into this decision, and we were excited about sharing a hyphenated last name.

We’ve now been married for about a month and a half, and unlike Mrs. Cannon, Mr. Parasol and I haven’t begun the process of officially changing our last names. And we currently have no plans to do so.

At first, we both had a “We’ll deal with that later” attitude towards officially changing our names. I don’t know about you, but given the choice between dealing with various government entities and not dealing with said entities, I always choose not. Besides, like most twenty-first century newlyweds, we changed our names on Facebook, and we used our new last name socially, so we figured there was no rush to make things official. Apparently we Parasols are lazy. But as the weeks ticked by, I started to feel uncomfortable with the idea of our new last name, and I realized that there was more than laziness behind my nonchalance about legally changing our names.
Read more…

Oh yes we seriously did. We seriously just decided the whole name change debacle with rock, paper, scissors. The stakes? If Mr. D won we’d either both take my last name as a second middle and his as our communal last; I’d also retain middle name rights or my surname as a first name for our future kids. If I won? We’d both double barrel and so would our future kids. We played best out of five to determine the winner.

(source)

Read more…

Hello bees! I know, it’s been far too long. I have to admit that I’ve been hibernating in our Chicago apartment, thoroughly enjoying married life. I spent the weekend devouring the Martha Stewart holiday issue, cooking from my new Indian cookbook, and snuggling with Mr. Jasmine. For all of you in the midst of wedding planning stress, take heart: a relaxing, blissful married life awaits you!

Last week, I took a big (belated) step: I finally changed my name. It was very strange to see “Jasmine Married Name” on my social security card, but I was also overjoyed. That is, until I realized what a pain it is to make sure your maiden name and your married name are “linked up”. For example, I was updating my resume with my new name when a thought occurred to me: what if a prospective employer does a background check? They won’t find record of a “Jasmine Married Name” at any of my previous schools or jobs. I finally decided to add “formerly Jasmine Maiden Name” to my resume, so hopefully that solves that problem. But it’s still confusing for work matters where I started a case with one name, but will now go by another name.

For those of you that changed your name, how did you connect your maiden name and married name in your professional life?

We made it back from the Philippines, and we’re in Detroit right now! We have a layover for a couple of hours before we catch a flight back to NYC, so I’m just checking in on Weddingbee.  It was a grueling trip with four flights: El Nido to Manila to Nagoya to Detroit to Manhattan, but we’re finally here!  

While we’re waiting for our connecting flight, I wanted to share a little secret with you guys.  I changed my last name a year ago on my driver’s license and social security card, but being the ultimate procrastinator that I am, I neglected to change my name on anything else… including my passport.

I chanced it and left the country with my passport bearing my maiden name.  And I’m happy to say that I made it through customs and into the States with no problem at all.  (Not that I’m endorsing that you do this in any way! )

It took me almost three years to change my name.  Our 4th anniversary is coming up.  Hopefully I’ll finally get around to changing my name on my passport, bank accounts, credit cards, etc. before our 5th anniversary.

For those of you changing your last names, how long is it taking you to complete the process?

Mrs. Hydrangea posted recently about her decision to change her name in a rather unusual way, and it got me thinking about my name decision (ahem, more like a non-decision). Having been married before, I’ve done the name change thing (and then reversed it). The whole thing was awful. When I first adopted my new married name, I felt lost, like all of my history up to that point had been wiped out, even though I was 21 at the time. Then when I reverted to my maiden name, I was even more devastated. In the years I was married, I graduated and my career really took off. Suddenly, the plaques and awards on my wall were in a different name. “That’s not me anymore!” I’d think each time I’d look at them… but I’d left my maiden name so long before that it didn’t feel right either. And I won’t mention the awkwardness of being congratulated by coworkers (whom I obviously didn’t know very well) on my marriage when in fact my name changed because of the d-word.
Read more…

Yesterday I took on the task of changing my name. I collected all of the proper paperwork and headed out to do the following, in this order:1) Get two certified copies of my marriage certificate.

2) Change Driver’s License.

3) Change Social Security.

I’m going to share my experiences with you all, but please know that this was only my personal experience in the State of Texas. While I work in the big city of Dallas, I opted to go back near our home, in a smaller town and much smaller county, to avoid lines (which I highly recommend). In total, with all transit times, it took me 3 hours to complete all of my tasks, plus I stopped at home to fill and print out my passport info and get pictures taken at my local Walgreens.
Read more…

In my previous blog about the DMV, I told you all about being denied the ability to change my name to First Maiden Newlast. Well, my darling readers, I made myself an 8:45am appointment at the Culver City DMV, planning on being denied for a third time.

Despite being allowed to sleep in this morning until 8am (unlike my usual wakeup time at 6:15am), I woke up at 6:30 anyway. My stomach was turning with the anticipation of the morning’s appointment, and it was all I could do to not show up an hour early! It was nice, though, taking my sweet time getting ready, sitting on the couch in my jammies with Woofie on my lap, watching last night’s Oscar fashion roundup.

Finally, it came time to go, and I made sure to bring my manila folder that contained my marriage certificate, my new DMV application that I filled out last night, my new Social Security card, my IRA statement, insurance cards and ATM cards that had my new information on it. What was I trying to do? Honestly, I was thinking I could collect as much information with my new name on it, hoping they would just give in.
Read more…

Oh DMV, how I despise you. You make me wait for an hour to be seen on a beautiful Friday afternoon, only to be rejected for a new ID. My Social Security card is not enough to convince you that I don’t want to keep my middle name, no, I just want my First Maiden NewLast. It seems simple, right? After all, the SS office had no problem with it.

On Friday, I went to the Santa Monica DMV location, armed with my certified marriage license, my Social Security card, and my Name-Change form. My dad and I sat there amongst the herd, anxiously awaiting the moment G189 would be called. And waited. And waited. I went over the name form to make sure I entered everything correctly, and finally! I was called up. Thinking I was looking stylin’ with my hair down and my makeup camera-ready, I calmly strode up to the counter, only to be told that I can’t change my name to First Maiden NewLast. Why, you ask? Because my CA marriage certificate lists my name as First Middle Maiden, and if I want to change it, I must add the middle name to my other names. Now, I really don’t want a four name name, ya know? That’s okay for other people, but I really don’t need all those names. When I told her that I have the Social Security card to match what I wanted, get this- she told me to go back and GET A NEW CARD. Are you out of your damn mind? I have to change my name AGAIN?

Read more…

Now that the thank you cards are sent, the gifts opened, used and put away, and our new bed has arrived, all the fun wedding things are done, leaving me with all the menial tasks of name-changing.

I have just taken a large step: I made Mr. Kiwi my IRA beneficiary. When and if I pass away, all my money in my IRA will be given to him. This is crazy to me. I reminded myself to change my profile information to include my new name, and while I was there I noticed I could change who gets all my junk in the event I should pass on. Entering Mr. Kiwi’s name and birthdate was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. Oddly enough, it wouldn’t allow me to change my name on the website, though.

It’s funny which things change when you get married. What things have you anticipated, or are you anticipating? Did you have to be reminded like I did? It’s so weird how many things you need to change when you change your name.