How and where to change your name

This is not an easy process. The older you are, the more difficult it is. Not in any sort of "get married young" kind of way. When you're older, you have a job, you have your own insurance, credit cards, leases, mortgages, phone bills, lots of things in your name. When you're young, everything's probably in your parents' names, or you don't even have it yet. Either way, it's going to be a hassle. 

In a fashion similar to that of my wedding day emergency bag, I did a lot of googling to create a comprehensive list to meet my needs. The site I found most helpful was at The Examiner, and this article will be very similar.

The most important thing to note is that you will need the certified copy of your marriage license for most of these things. We went to the courthouse ourselves the Monday after the wedding. This took all of 20 minutes and we walked away with the certified copy. The other option is to hand it over to your officiant and they will mail it in to the court. It then takes 4 to 6 weeks for you to get the certified copy mailed to your house. If your documents are time sensitive (mine were), I recommend filing yourself. Otherwise, enjoy the honeymoon and don't worry about the paperwork until you get the thing back in the mail.


The obvious places

1. Driver's license (and voting registration) - Go to a licensing office with your old driver license and your marriage license. Going to a less busy location, or during non-peak times will help shorten the trip. (Lunch and closing times are the worst.) You will be given a temporary license to show your new name, in addition to your original license with the top sliced off. Bars barely notice the sliced-off card, but if you are traveling, make sure to carry both pieces of identification to prove your new name is legit at the airport. Be sure to ask that a new voter's registration card be sent to you as well. This doesn't necessarily happen automatically, so better safe than sorry to verify. (This was extra fun for me. My new license mailed to my parents' house in Texas, and they didn't want to mail it to me. I was meeting up with them in Colorado in mid-September, but I had to rent a car on my temporary license. That is an experience I do not wish upon anyone!)


2. Social Security Card - Take your marriage license and old driver license to a local social security office. You can find your nearest one here. If you don't have an hour or two to spend there, you can mail in your request. Wait until your new driver license arrives in the mail so you aren’t caught without one, then send your old driver license, along with your marriage license, and an application you can print off www.socialsecurity.gov to your local office. There are pros and cons to both options. If you mail in your marriage license, you won't have it for name changes in the mean time. The office in Dallas wasn't the most glamorous place, but the wait really wasn't so awful. Plus I got to keep all of my documents in the mean time. Bonus: Your social security number does NOT change when your name changes. That was a huge relief to me!


3. Bank Accounts/Investment Accounts/Credit Cards - You will need your marriage license for this, too. Take it along with a piece of ID showing your new name in to your local branch. If you have a joint checking account (with a parent or with your new spouse), the other person (people) on the account must also be present. I know, this is a little weird. When you change your name on the account, you have to create a new signature card. Since that is a legal document, all parties must be present, with IDs, to sign it. This was a sticking point for me as I'm in Canada and my mom (who's on my US accounts) is in Texas. Don't forget to order new checks with Mrs. on them! For the credit cards, you might have to fax them a copy of your new ID and marriage certificate. If you're like most of the people out there today, you do not have a fax machine. Never fear, there are, of course, websites for this. Just scan/snap a picture of your documents and send them through a site such as this one.


4. Work - This is a multi-part bullet point. Email your HR department before the wedding to ask what documents they will need. They might need a new piece of ID, your marriage license, and/or your new social security card. Don't forget to ask for new business cards to be printed as well. Some places will issue you a new email address as well, it depends on their system and how old it is. 

The less obvious places

1. Insurance - This includes health insurance, auto, home/renter's, life insurance, wills or last testaments. This will be a similar process as changing the name on your credit cards. That online fax service is now your best friend. 


2. Utilities/Monthly Bills - Electric company, water company, tv, internet, land line, cell phone. Some of them will want the copies of your documents, oddly, some will not. Another key thing to do here is update your payment information once your bank accounts and credit cards have been updated. Also, if you have any student loans, mortgages, or lines of credit, you'll have to contact those agencies to have them update the information.


3. Your Lease! Car title, deeds to any property - These are very important! They are legal documents. Some will tell you that they regard the law as it existed the day you signed it, keeping with the legal name you held when you signed the document. I am on the paranoid side and would hate for my old name to be an issue at any point down the road, so it's better to take care of these things now rather than have to backpedal when something comes up.


4. Passport - Some don't travel as much as others, and this is fine. Before you go anywhere, check this site for the forms you need. I needed mine immediately, which provided some difficulty. If you need same day service, here is what I recommend. Take your new pictures before the wedding. I went the week before so that I could pick them up before everything got crazy. I added them to my stack of paperwork for my Monday name-changing adventure. The tricky part is that the passport agency offices are few and far between. They'd only recently opened one in Dallas, which allowed me to get my new one. Check this list for the location nearest you. If you do not need it immediately, you can mail in your old passport with a copy of your marriage certificate. For a new passport, the process is similar, but it will take several weeks to be mailed to you.


5. Accounts/Memberships - This is a very broad topic. It covers your airline and hotel memberships, gym memberships, Angie's List, any toll tag accounts for your car. This one will have additional things that pop up over the months as you remember the last time you logged in or booked a flight. For the airline memberships, you will need to send copies of new identification and your marriage certificate. Since they deal with travel and need your full legal name, they need to verify your identity.


6. Social media accounts - This is the fun and easy part! Update your Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, LinkedIn! A lot of them let you indicate previous names, which can be beneficial (particularly Facebook and LinkedIn, where people searching for you might readily know your old name).


7. Email - In the same light, your email account now needs an update. If you feel so inclined, you can acquire an entirely new address to reflect your name. At the very least, update your email signature. If you go the route of a new address, you can send a mass email to all of your contacts to let them know. You can also port your existing contact list over to your new account and set up forwarding from the old account to the new one, so you don't miss any mail. If you get a new address, be sure to update that on any online accounts you have! Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, Netflix, rewards programs!


8. Home address labels - Yay! Yall are now a pair! Here's Paper Source's site for getting a custom stamp. Their system is pretty neat. You can reuse the stamp apparatus and change out the actual stamp as you move or need to stamp something else!

There's always somewhere else or something else. Depending on who you are or the things you have, there will be something else. 

It's a lot of work. It's exhausting, since you just planned a wedding and got married, to now have to talk to tons of customer service reps and government workers. But you can do this. We all believe in you!

Sweet presents from our photographer!!!

We got an amazing package in the mail yesterday!!

Christy Archibald, our amazing and talented wedding photographer, mailed us a beautifully packaged gift!

We got our proof of production (a letter saying we have the rights to have the pictures printed for our own private use), a nifty wooden USB with all of our pictures on it.

Plus a large print!! It's perfect for a frame I've had for at least a year and a half without something to put it in!

Now we just have to decide where to put it...

Wedding emergency bag

This is a very important thing to prepare for your wedding.

As a Girl Scout for life, I am always way more prepared than I need to be for any event/excursion/trip/life. Therefore, the first time I saw anything about a bride's "Wedding Day Emergency Bag," I knew I had to have one.

I began scouring websites and Pinterest boards looking for anything and everything that folks recommended to include in your bag. I have compiled that list here for you, so it's all in one nice place.

1. Deodorant! You never know who's going to forget to bring some, or need to reapply. I got a couple of options for the girls and an option for the guys. None of my groomsmen would have touched Dove deodorant.

2. Straws. This is a must for the bride! Once you get start getting dressed and done up, no more bottles, cups, or cans for you. Drink from the straw to avoid spills or ruining your makeup. I also insisted all my bridesmaids use them.

3. Static guard. My bridesmaids were in floor length chiffon dresses in August in Texas. There was going to be static cling.

4. Snacks of some sort. We provided lunch for everyone, but the day is long and folks will get snacky before the next meal. I did Clif bars because they are nutritious and filling. Two kinds because I am the model citizen of picky.

5. Sand paper. If anyone is wearing new heels, they should scuff up the bottoms so they don't slip on the walk down the aisle or out getting their groove on. This was a cool spongy sand paper with two roughness textures.

6. Febreeze. Whether or not it's the limo or the chairs or couch at the hotel, something might be a little stinky that day.

7. Handheld mirror. There usually aren't enough mirrors to go around when you get a group of girls together, or you'll want to do a check at some point during the day after you leave the prep room.

8. Hair spray - the strong kind. If you're having anyone with an up-do, or even with curls, you will need your own hairspray for touch ups during the day. We had miracle stylists from Hair and Makeup in Motion and no one needed hair or makeup touch ups the whole night! But, I can guarantee that we would have needed hairspray if I didn't have any with me. This is the way the world works. 

9. Black socks. Odds are one of the groomsmen or someone in the family will have forgotten/will bring a ratty pair of black socks. For us, it actually was one of my uncles!

10. Umbrellas. Especially if your wedding is in a rainy season, umbrellas are a must. I had two, one to get to the groomsmen and one for the girls if the rain had started. It rained every day for a week leading up to our wedding, then not a single drop on the actual day! 

11. Pads and tampons. If you get enough girls together in a room, one of them will be on their period.

12. Baby powder. Chaffing's worst nightmare.

13. Razors and shaving cream. For this, like for the deodorant, I provided guy and girl options. Max's family are all a little hairy, so I wanted to be ready in case someone needed a quick clean up.

14. Tapes! I had duct tape and painter's tape. We wound up using the painters tape for something on Friday. You never know when a sign is going to fall apart, then the best man will forget tape to decorate the car, or when someone's shoes are going to fall apart. Thankfully, none of those things happened to us!

15. Rubber bands! Really, anything could happen at a wedding.

16. Lint roller. All of our groomsmen and a lot of our family members own pets.

16. Benadryl for allergies. On the flip side of several wedding party members owning pets, we had a groomsmen and a bridesmaid who were severely allergic to pets. These were definitely used, both the anti-itch spray (Texas + August = mosquitoes) and the allergy liquid gels.

17. Bug repellent, sunscreen, aloe vera. Along the same lines of Texas in August, plus a few outdoor shots that I wanted, I wanted to make sure my guys and gals were protected (especially my two red-headed bridesmaids!).

18. Flashlight. This is just a little leftover from my days of camping and other Girl Scout adventures. You really never know.

19. Makeup things. For touch ups and cleaning up injuries.

20. Eye care things. Contacts freak out and eyes act up. If you have wedding party members with contacts, be prepared.

21. Oral care. I had toothbrushes, toothpaste, breath refreshing strips, mouth wash, floss, the whole line up.

22. Regular old Scotch tape and some Krazy Glue. Because, you know.

23. Nail maintenance set and nail polish remover. The bridesmaids and I all got our nails done Friday night, but just in case you don't go that route and someone shows up with neon colors on their hands.

24. Charging cables. This was for the getting ready portion of the morning. I had cables for the old iPhones, the new iPhones, all other phones, and an AUX cable for our morning tunes. I also had an plug for an outlet that provided a couple of USB inputs. I also had a power strip in case we needed more outlets. These were used.

25. AAA and AA batteries. For all sorts of reasons.

26. Tide sink pods and Kleenex. These are a nifty little thing I found. Tide has these little pods of their soap that are the perfect size to wash one garment in the sink. How cool is that?!

27. Double sided tape. Ladies, this is to help keep your dress where it should be. Also your bridesmaid dresses.

28. Blister aid and prevention things. For girls and shoes.

29. Mini emergency crash course sewing kit/things. This was to be in case something went wrong with anyone's clothes.

30. Pens, pencils, highlighters, sharpies, whiteout (liquid and strips).

31. A couple of dryer sheets. They have the same effect as the cling spray.

32. Ear plugs.

33. Matches. Seriously. Girl Scouting. Well, plus we had a few candles in the plans for the day.

34. Extra backs to earrings. 

35. A mini-spiral notebook. Just in case someone needed to write something down.

Ok, so up to this point, all of these things had been sorted and filed into a large duffel bag with pockets. Now come the things I considered top priority. They went into this small red zippered bag that was more easily "to go." There were also pens and pencils in this bag, along with some of the breath strips.

36. Antacid, Advil, Tylenol, Band-Aids, Vaseline. All for various, obvious reasons.

38. Hair bands, bobby pins, clear hair elastics.

39. Make-up removal wipes, chapstick, mascara, concealer in two tones. The make-up removal wipes were actually in case any of it got on clothing or any other object.

40. Q-tips, toothpicks, Tide to-go pen, mini exacto knives. You never know.

41. Hairbrush and combs.

42. Wet wipes, hand sanitizer, scissors.

43. Clear nail polish. There are chiggers in Texas.

44. White chalk, moisturizer, oil blotting sheets. The white chalk is for your dress. If you spill anything on it and the Tide to-go pen doesn't do the trick, try the chalk.

That's what I had with me on my wedding day! I'm honestly not sure who moved it around all day. I told the girls about it, but I'm decently sure it got shuffled over to a wedding-coordinator responsibility (Tamorah, with SimplyMox. Simply amazing.). It was actually nice to have a bag. I also kept my phone, license, and a little spare cash in it. Then, the sunglasses we'd used for a few photos wound up in there, along with my first pair of shoes.

Let me know if there's anything else you had in your emergency bag, or that you've heard of brides keeping with them!

Wedding pictures!!!

I got oodles and oodles of wedding pictures from the amazing and incredible Christy Archibald (Facebook here) over the weekend. In fact, we were watching the second Cloud 9 vs. Curse game at PAX when I got the email with the link!!! Max was very tolerant of my non-participation while I poured over our pictures!

She set them up in four albums, and I loved it so much I kept them when I made my own hard copy books! That is what I'll be sharing here! When you click on the link, you'll be taken to Picaboo's website to view a preview of the book I made. I've set them to open a new window this time since it's sort of an exhibition. Tab through the pages for the full experience :) I know I put some in here, but for the full experience, check out the books!!!!

The first is Getting Ready. I've added a couple of my favorites from there.

Then we had the Ceremony! There's also some of that below.

Portraits were taken before and after the ceremony, but they fit well all in their own book. I even added some of these.

Our Reception was the best party we could have ever imagined! TONS of reception photos (we got almost 1000 from Christy in that album!). Ok, for these you HAVE to go look at the book! I'm sorry! I just can't pick out any to share over all the others!!!