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.