Name Change After Minimony or Big Ceremony

I would change your name when you get married. I don’t think it’s weird unless you’re keeping it a secret that you’ll be married already.

My minimony was last week and I'm in the process of changing my last name. I'm not waiting until our big wedding in March, we will already have the same last name.

I think it makes more sense to do it after you get married. (We're in a similar situation but our miniwedding was in August. I haven't actually started the name change process yet, but I'm not waiting until next year.)


There's no reason you have to use your legal names on the invitations. We're just using our first names, but you can use your maiden name for that purpose if you want to.

Definitely easier to do it after your legal ceremony because with certain parts of the change you have to obtain extra documents if its been more than a certain amount of time since you were married. Im sure you would not have this problem only one year after your wedding but just in case. Also right now name changes are taking forever so if you start now it may not be done for six months anyway

I’m waiting mainly because SSA offices are closed and i don’t want to do it by mail.

I'm changing mine after legal marriage! If everyone knows you're already legally married you can put same last name on the invites and just put celebration of our marriage or vow renewal etc.!