wedding road trip

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

I find the old adage, “put your money where your mouth is” more than a little bit funny. Just think for a moment and laugh with me…

Thinking…

Thinking…

Heidi Fleiss…

Thinking…

This morning, Chris and I took the first legal step in changing our names. For those of you who are thinking of taking on a new last name of your own, here’s the deal (at least for California):

1. You have to fill out five forms in triplicate and submit them to the Superior Court.

2. You have to write a check for $370.

3. You have to stand and wait for those forms to be filed while listening to the world’s most obnoxious woman argue over a small claims case in a voice that rivals that of the Giant from Jack in the Beanstalk. *

4. You have to repeat steps one through three for your spouse. Yep, that means you’ve just written checks totaling $740.

5. You have to walk down the street, past a selection of unsavory characters asking you for money… which you now don’t have because you’ve given it all to the City of San Francisco.

6. You walk up the stairs to the office of The Recorder, the cheapest local law journal in the City, where you file your public Change of Name forms for $49.75 each.

7. Eight weeks later, you show up at the Superior Court for a hearing that lasts approximately five minutes. Your chosen name cannot carry fraudulent intent and cannot interfere with the rights of others (ie: I cannot name myself Britney Spears unless I have a really good reason for it- which frankly, I’d love to hear if you’ve got one…)

8. You go through the process of changing your name on everything that defines you: your social security card, your driver’s license, your bank accounts, your credit cards, your gym membership, and so on. You can also change your name on your birth certificate (or gender- but that’s another story for another time.)

9. Two and half months and more than eight hundred dollars later, you’re the proud owner of a name that you’d better damn well like.

To those of you who are thinking of doing what we’ve done, a word of advice: have one person change his/her name before you file for a marriage license. This will cut the cost in half once you’ve signed on the dotted line. We didn’t go this route because we spent over three months trying to decide on the perfect last name…

*this may not happen to you. I hope.

The Parent Dinner

Friends have told me that we’ll be looking back on the wedding experience for several weeks to come. While I already feel like everything happened approximately one hundred years ago, I have to agree that certain moments keep cycling through my mind, one of which was the Parent Dinner last Wednesday night.

No matter what the movie, whether it be Monster in Law or Rachel Getting Married, parents are painted as the biggest cause of pre-wedding angst for cinematic brides and grooms. Chris and I, ever the gullible, expected that to be the case in real life. We tried to avoid the awkward parent meet up by combining it with our rehearsal dinner and were shut down by six angry parents who most definitely wanted to meet prior to any group activities.

Yep, you read that right: six parents. Chris only comes with two, while I have four on my side, three of which have been with me basically all of my life. Before you start thinking my dad’s a candidate for the next season of Big Love, let me clarify. My mom and dad split up when I was a wee little girl. A year or so later, my mom met and married my stepdad John. Given that he was around for all of my pre-teen and adolescent angst, he has pretty strong credentials as one of my parents. My dad’s current wife came much later in the game (last year), but is probably the feistiest of the bunch. Imagining these four teamed up with Chris’s nice, pleasant, mid-western parents was enough to make me consider smoking the grass, if you know what I mean.

Turns out that compatibility was not the issue I should have been worried about. The six of them got along like sorority girls at a trunk sale while Chris and I sat on the sidelines like last year’s fashion. I think we probably spoke a combined five sentences the entire night. It went something like this:

Jaime: So on Saturday, we’ll-

Mom #1: So Kathy, where did you get that sweater? It’s positively divine.

Chris: Well, that sweater actually reminds me that it might be chilly at Saturday’s ceremony and-

Dad #1: We should probably talk about Saturday’s ceremony. Dad #2, what do you think?

Dad #2: Well, maybe we should ask the kids when they’re around.

Chris and Jaime: We’re right here!!

During dessert, we finally got our moment in the sun when we announced our name choice. We figured, hell, they gave birth to us and stuff, which probably gives them some special privileges over the rest of Saturday’s guests. I must say, I was quite relieved when Chris’s mom positively beamed at our selection, given that she shares quite a history with the name.

Special Note: I think our parents would have caroused late into the night if I hadn’t put the kibosh on the evening around ten thirty to get my beauty sleep. This just proves two things. 1) I need a lot of rest and 2) I am officially older than my parents.

Both thoughts=disturbing.

Day 1: What’s in a Name?

Driving for eight hours straight is no problem, especially when you get to play on “The Google” all day like I did. Chris, however, was seriously wiped as we rolled into Elmira, Oregon, home of my Uncle Julian and Aunt Linda. Julian is the middle child (solidarity!) of three boys, one of which is my father. He wasn’t actually born with the name Julian, deciding to change it when he realized that Ronald wasn’t his thing. He’s totally a Julian in every way… whatever that means.

Which brings me to a subject that has been up for serious discussion between Chris and me: our future last name. As we see it, we have six options:

1. Keep our own individual last names.
2. I take his last name.
3. He takes my last name.
4. We come up with our own last name.
5. We hyphenate our last names.
6. We drop last names altogether and become Chris and Jaime, much like the Artist Formerly Known as Prince and Also as a Really Screwed Up Symbol.

1. The most likely. Yes, if we have kids it will be confusing. But my kids will also have six grandparents- that’s pretty confusing too. As Phil Collins would say “It’s a Land of Confusion.” They’ll get over it. (Did I really just quote Phil Collins?)

2. Pretty much off the table. I like my last name… Jaime Case sounds like a super spy with a secret underground mission. I’m also a writer, and people know me by Jaime Case. Given that I’ve written several riveting pet insurance blogs recently, I really want people to be able to find my work by my given name.

3. Off the table… for now- but I’m working on it. I think Chris Case sounds great, but then he reminded me that “Chris Case makes you jump jump.” If you’re too young to understand that reference, I hate you.

4. This one intrigues me. A friend of mine actually has a made up last name and it rocks. We’ve discussed taking the last names of our grandparents and even of our friend Deirdre, who gave up the coolest maiden name in history (Chris Coulter…. can you dig it? I can.)

5. Not gonna happen. I like my first name, but not that much. Chris likes this option because he thinks it makes him sound like a Brazilian soccer star.

6. Also not gonna happen. Jaime Case-Hodges sounds like I have a disease. For example, “Poor Jaime, she has a case of the Hodges.”

So for us, changing our names (or at least changing mine) is not as easy as Ronald to Julian. We’ve both lived with our last names for more than thirty years and neither of us is eager to give them up.

I foresee a mud wrestling match.