Three Tips to Becoming an Official Mrs.

Acing the Legal Side of “I Do”: 3 Tips to Becoming an Official Mrs.

In planning your wedding and crossing off the to-do’s of finding the perfect dress, a venue, caterer and florist, don’t forget about the legal side of your marriage! So many brides get caught up in the event that they forget the key components of their marriage license and potential name change. Follow these three tips to make your marriage a legal breeze!

Tip #1: Figure Out Marriage License Filing. A marriage license is the legal document that allows your marriage to be recognized by your state and the U.S. federal government. Every state (and many times every county) has different filing procedures, fees and wait times for marriage licenses to be issued. Check out MarriageLicenseNow.com to find your marriage county’s specific filing requirements as well as insider filing tips to ensure you walk down the aisle to become an official Mrs.

Tip #2: Know Your Options. Did you know that there are more than 5 married name change options to consider when/if you decided to change your name after marriage? You can opt to hyphenate last names, take two last names without a hyphen, replace your middle name with your maiden name, take your maiden name as a second middle name or replace your maiden name with your spouse’s last name. Which option is best for you? Play the MarriedNameGame and let the patent-pending algorithm behind the 8 question quiz help you find your perfect married name change option!

Tip #3: Become a Mrs. In a Matter of Minutes. If you decide to change your name post-wedding, you will need to file a series of legal forms with the federal government, state level government as well as notify all of your banks, credit cards, insurances, mortgages, utilities, etc. Navigating that process can take upwards of 13 hours! No newlywed wants to spend 13 hours dealing with red tape and standing in long office lines. Enter MissNowMrs.com. Their easy online name change service asks you a series of questions and uses your answers to auto-complete all of the necessary legal forms and notify over 16 million companies of your name change. All that in 30 minutes…not 13 hours!

Danielle is the founder and CEO of MissNowMrs, MarriedNameGame.com and MarriageLicenseNow. She is an entrepreneur, wife, mother, Megaformer devotee, and name-change expert.