In the excitement of planning a wedding and all the fun things that go along with it, every once in a while I’m reminded of the not-as-fun-but-still-necessary things that we should plan for after the wedding.
Of course, the biggie. Name Change. Ugh. This must have been easier for women when they married at the age of 20. I have at least a decade worth of accounts, credit cards, usernames, travel documents, etc. that all have my current last name. But, I don’t want to be a brat about it, because women change their last names all the time. The plan is to append my current last name to my middle name, and take my fiancé’s last name. I’ll be doing more research on what is required of legal name change in our State. Does anyone have step-by-step instructions? (Like if it is easier if things are changed in a certain order?) I’ll also look into MissNowMrs.com. Have any SuperNoVAbride readers used their service?
But, with that said, I’ll probably wait about a year to formally change my name, for a few reasons:
- My current passport expires in early 2013. I don’t want to get that amended with a new last name just to have to apply for a brand new passport about one year later.
- I want to be able to NOT THINK ABOUT ANYTHING for at least a few months after the wedding. A legal name change and changing everything associated with that last name, will be a hassle that will require a lot of errands and phone calls, so I just want to wait for a little while and enjoy some downtime after the wedding.
Consolidate policies like health insurance, car insurance, cell phone accounts, bank accounts, etc.
- We’ll need to figure out who has the better health insurance and insurance rates. This always sounds more straightforward than it really is.
- My fiancé owns the house that we live in now, and although he has home owners insurance, I still retain a separate renters insurance policy to avoid any problems if there every was a catastrophic home accident. For instance, I would hate for his homeowners insurance policy to not cover any of my belongings just because I’m not the homeowner. But, after we get married, I can cancel the renters policy. He and I need to do an extensive home inventory though to best determine what coverage we need. We have a lot of high tech gadgets. We’ll also research what it takes for me to get added to the deed and the mortgage.
- We both have the same cell phone carrier, but have separate accounts. Consolidating will save us money.
- Bank accounts will be complicated and will be a slow transition. I’ll write more about this in the future, but I’ll transfer all my recurring expenses to a separate bank account, then transfer money from my existing checking account to the joint account at first (without changing my direct deposit). That way, once I do change my account for direct depositing my paycheck, I won’t have any surprise charges that come out of my long-time checking account.
Changing beneficiary information and adding joint owners on accounts like 401k’s and other investments. I maintain a spreadsheet of all my accounts and I update their balances each month. Once married, I’ll have my fiancé enter his information as well, that way we each know all the accounts we have and who they’re with.
For the morbid of the post-marriage administrivia, taking care of things like setting up a living revocable trust, making clear our wishes if either one of us was ever incapacitated, and our burial/cremation wishes, etc. Enough about that one.
What am I forgetting?
