Ok, so here’s the tea…I have seriously been struggling with the question: Should you change your last name after I do? As my wedding fast approaches (three months, y’all!) I have been thinking about it even more. So I’ve teamed up with Weddingwire to share all information I could find about changing your name. I’m breaking down the pros and cons, and talked to women who are married, engaged, not married but have opinions….literally everyone who will talk to me about this matter and see what people think. If you are in the same boat as me and you just feel torn on this decision, I hope this post helps you a bit, because when it comes to the decision to change your last name, it really isn’t black and white and is totally up to you and your personal situation, so let’s get down to it!
First of all, I want to talk a little bit about my thoughts leading up to this blog post. I grew up in a very traditional, conservative family. That being said, when I was growing up and imagining my life, I was in a completely different place than where I am now. It is safe to say that I have a lot of different ideas about life and whatnot from when I was 16 years old, thinking I’d be married with three kids by age 25, you know what I’m saying? Since getting engaged, I have really had to have a hard think about changing my name, and I personally have felt strongly about not changing my name, for a couple of reasons. Obviously, my last name plays a lot into my career, so it would be super weird to not be Ms. Moore anymore, even if I was a Mrs. More to the point, I’ve lived 30 years of my life with this name and honestly, it just would feel somewhat like a loss of my identity to one day wake up and not be Jessica Moore. All that being said, I realize that there are definite pros and cons and alternative options to the last name game, so let’s just get into and walk through it, shall we?
Team Change Your Last Name
Pros: This is the easiest way to go. You won’t have any issues when you travel together, or your spouse is in the hospital, or when you need to pick your kids up at school, aka, you will never have to worry about proving that you’re married or that your kids are yours. This is the traditional way, the way that society expects you to go, and some might argue its very romantic to take your spouse’s last name. When you change your last name, it can make you feel more like a family unit, a team even. If you happen to not really love your current last name, it is a great opportunity to trade up. Also, hello, monograms are so much more fun this way.
Cons: Like I said for me personally, it can feel like an identity loss. Another issue could be the fact that your last name could be easier to pronounce and your spouse could have some crazy, long, wack pronunciation that no one will ever get right and you now have to live the rest of your days with that.
If you choose to change your last name, make sure you know everything you need to know as far as what you need to have in place! Check out more info on there here!
Team Don’t Change Your Last Name
Pros: You don’t have to go through the whole long process of changing your name…trust, it is a hassle and a half and you really have to make sure that you get it all the way changed over, with all your accounts, or things will get really messed up with your bank, social security, ID, etc etc, just thinking about it gives me a headache. You get to keep your name, if it means something to you. If you happen to be in a situation in which you are the last in your family with your last name, it can live on.
Cons: It can be harder to prove you are married or if your children take your husband’s name, that they are your children in certain situations. Not that your kids are going to get stripped away from you or some other extreme situation, it just creates more of a hassle than if you share the same last name.
Alternatives
You could hyphenate, so you can supposedly get the best of both worlds. This allows you to keep your last name if you have a strong connection to it, while also taking on your new married name. While this sounds great in theory, the more I looked into it, the less appealing this option seemed. First of all, you have to think about the fact that your identity goes into all types of computer systems, and the hyphenated names are known to get messed up, either by loosing the dash and making the two names into one long name, or mixing up which name comes first. Basically, there is a lot of room for error. Also, this is going to make your last name hella long. Really think about all the times you’re going to have to write out, type out, spell out, say out your last name and factor that into your hyphenation decision.
If you fiance is into it, you can combine your two names into one. I have known a couple couples who have done this, and its fantastic. It’s more of an equal coming together of two people, and it kind of gives you both a sort of fresh start. The obvious downside is that you are making a break from both of your families, so that whole family tree thing is going to be a little jumbled, but if you can deal with the aesthetic mix up on your ancestry.com account, then go for it!
The option I have most thought of is changing my name legally, but still basically going by my own last name, for professional reasons. I mean, this site is missmoorestyle.com, am I right?! I know that even if I don’t choose to change my last name, people are still going to call me Mrs. Burk, and that’s fine, I won’t get hung up on correcting them. Just because my ID or passport says Burk doesn’t necessarily mean I can’t still go by Jessica Moore in all the professional settings.
Obviously, the choice to change your last name is super personal and is completely up to you! The good news is that there are now so many other options available than in previous times. Yes, some people might raise their eyebrows if you decide to do anything other than the traditional route, but this is the 21st century and you no longer have to drop your last name if that’s not something you want to do! If you want to look into this further, this article from Weddingwire was especially helpful to me in my research process.
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