Bride Guide #63 Gives you 5 tips on the Technicalities of marriage by Hyrum Utah Wedding Photographer Lauren Kay Photography.

This is the most important part. At the end of the day, your wedding will be over. And truthfully was just
one day. But your marriage? That is forever. We are planning marriages, not just weddings.
Getting married changes things. Where you live, your last name.

1. Where are we going to live?

Yep! If neither of you have a place to yourself, you may need to find a place to live. This is a
great task to delegate to your groom, in addition to planning the honeymoon. Again, you
should definitely talk about it together, but let him be the one in charge of looking online,
contacting people, and setting up tours.

2. When should we move in?

If possible, I highly recommend getting settled in as much as possible before your wedding
and honeymoon. Move everything into your new place and get things settled. It is worth it
to come back to a home, not a mess of things you have to unpack!

3. How do I change my name?

I recommend changing your last name as soon as possible. It’s easy to drag it out, but it
needs to happen sometime anyway. The sooner you get on it, the less complicated things
will be!

i. First you’ll need your certified marriage license – the one with a raised seal. Usually
this is sent to you within a few weeks after the wedding or you can go to the
courthouse where you filed your license to get it if needed.

ii. Next, go change your Social Security card. Fill out the SS-5 application on the Social
Security Administration’s website and either (1) send it in the mail along with the
needed documents, or (2) make an appointment and go into the closest Social
Security office near you with the needed documents. Your new card should come in
about 10 business days.

iii. Then, change your driver’s license at the local https://dmv.utah.gov/. You’ll need your new social
security card, marriage certificate, and your old driver’s license.

iv. Last, change your name everywhere else. Here are some other places you may need
to contact and have your name changed:
1. Passport
2. Bank accounts and credit cards
3. Landlord or bank
4. Bills, like utilities
5. Insurances
6. School or work
7. Post Office
8. Car title
9. Voter registration
10. Doctors’ offices
11. Social media and email

4. Should we send thank you cards?

This is probably going to sound awful, but I would say sending thank you cards is not
important. I believe in being grateful to the bottom of my soul! But I also don’t believe in
spending hours and hours and hundreds of dollars to send someone something they will

throw away. I honestly never care or remember if I do or don’t get a thank you. I know so
many people who purchased thank you cards or postcards and all the postage, spent hours
writing thank you cards but never finished them all, and so none of them got sent. If you are
someone who is super on top of things like that, then by all means do it! But remember how
we’re bagging other people’s expectations? Don’t worry about it. You can just be grateful in
your heart. If you want to send a few thank you cards to people you really want to thank,
please do. But I personally think that trite thank you cards out of obligation can be done
away with.

5. Do we need help?

Yes. I think that every single marriage would benefit from going to marriage counseling. We
weren’t considering a divorce, we were happy together, and so we felt like marriage
counseling wasn’t for us. Well, four years in we started going and it has been the best thing
we have ever done. Whether or not you feel like you need it, I recommend finding a
counselor you both like and going early on. Like day one, or even while you’re dating or
engaged. Seriously. I cannot recommend this enough. We are so glad we did it and wish we
would’ve done it four years sooner.

Tip:
Move into your new place a few weeks or months before you get married. Then you can get it decorated
and feeling like a home as a treat for your husband before he moves in.
 
Or…
Hire a company to change your name for you, like Hitchswitch Name Change.
 
If you do want to do thank you cards…
There’s nothing wrong with having a prewritten typed message on each one that you add a short
personal message to. If you want professional thank you notes click here: https://laurenkayphoto.com/vendors

Hyrum Utah Wedding Photographer