Changing your last name. This is a very common discussion among brides as they get closer to their weddings. You have to decide if you’re going to “take” your husband’s name. If you decide to change your name, there are many different ways to chang your name. You can hyphenate (which I’ve heard makes signing things pretty annoying), you can completely change your last name to your new husband’s, or you can change your maiden name to your middle name. I personally changed my maiden name to my middle name, and took my husband’s last name as my new last name. I wanted to keep some sort of link to my family, because I love them, but I also wanted to create our own “family” with my husband. So I totally changed my name. But let me tell you- it was a process. I still don’t even have some credit cards and meaningless accounts changed.

When I changed my name, it took me a while. First, I had to research where I had to go and what I had to do. Then I had to find the time to go to the Social Security office, which took about a month. Once I went there, it was pretty much a day-long excursion, so then the following week I had to take a trip to the DMV. It was crazy. I will tell you one thing though. If I had known about something like Name Change Express, I would have totally used it!

Screenshot of Name Change Express website

If you’ve read {ELD} for a a while, you know that I’m all about saving time. Name Change Express is exactly what you need to help you save time when it comes to changing your name. They give you instructions on what needs to be done to change your name. (And believe me- despite what you think, it’s not easy to find instructions online.) Name Change Express provides you with addresses and forms you need.  A cool thing about Name Change Express is that they are the only name change service that provides company-specific name change requirements for 100’s of companies across the U.S. (companies like Citibank, American Express, Geico, United Airlines, etc).  Brides who purchase the $30 service know exactly what these companies require to process their name, where they have to mail notification letters, and what documents must be included. Brilliant!

Trust me, you think changing your name will be a piece of cake, but there is a lot to it. You should definitely use Name Change Express to help you out with changing your name. And then you can use the time that you’ve saved to go have dinner with your new husband!