Newlywed Needs

Looking for name change advice or some tips for newlywed life? The MissNowMrs experts have created state-specific name change articles and checklists for you. We’ve chronicled our recommendations for how to travel while changing your name AND how to handle voting during the transition.

We’ve also compiled our best guidance for how to handle difficult sister in laws, holidays as newlyweds, the ever-annoying baby questions, and much more. Why? Because, while we are name change experts, we’re also newlywed wives, moms, and sisters.

We hope our name change advice articles help smooth your transition to your new name, and a whole new phase of life. Congratulations and best wishes from the entire MissNowMrs team!

Top 5 Black Friday Deals For Newlyweds

It’s time for turkey, shopping, and the holidays! As you look for gifts, don’t miss out on the top 5 Black Friday deals that will help you celebrate your newlywed status and your new married name.

Newlywed Black Friday Deals |mrs wine glass

Tis the season to be jolly… so why not order a stemless wine glass with your new married name to enjoy your cup(s) of cheer? This elegant glass is 50% off with the code: EVERYTHING at Shutterfly!

Newlywed Black Friday Deals | miss to mrs ring dish

Where are you keeping your wedding rings when you’re not wearing them? If the answer is not in a special/safe location. Then, you are in dire need of this adorable ring dish! It’s a stylish way to celebrate your transition from Miss to Mrs. And, the best part? This ring dish is 30% off with the code: GIVEJOY for Black Friday!

Black Friday Newlywed Deals | Mr and Mrs Towels

Mr. & Mrs. towels are a cute, yet practical way to celebrate your marriage and spruce up your master bathroom. So, use the code: SCORE to save an extra 15% on your purchase. You’ll smile every time you dry off after a shower or bath.

Newlywed Black Friday Deals | Mrs Earrings

Kate Spade has newlywed chic on lock, and Macy’s has a Black Friday deal on these gold Mrs. earrings. They’re an understated way to celebrate your new married name and status at work and on the weekends.

Newlywed Black Friday Deals | family pillow

Looking for a way to celebrate the day you became a family? This custom pillow from West Elm lets you showcase your new name and new family status with style. It’s perfect for your living room couch or as an accent pillow in your master bedroom. If you can’t decide, buy two! They’re 30% off with the code: SAVEMORE for Black Friday!

Get Your New Name Before the Holidays

We hope our list gets you excited about shopping as a Mrs. And, if you haven’t quite made the switch. We’d love to assist you with your name change. Our easy online name change app and service streamline the process into minutes. So, you have time to officially become a Mrs. before your purchases and the holidays arrive!

3 Ways to Know You Chose the Right Married Name

Changing your name after marriage is a very personal choice. You have to consider your heritage, career, and how you feel deep inside about changing your name. While 88% of U.S. brides opt to change their names, not all of them explore their options before making the switch. It’s important to use our 3 ways to know you chose the right married name.

Game Show Winner

You know the person the camera always pans to when a winner is announced during a game show? The crazy person jumping up and down and screaming. You can feel confident in your name change choice if you feel that same way whenever someone says your new name. Feeling that I-can’t-believe-how-lucky-I-am-right-now joy is a dead giveaway that you made a great choice.

Married Name Monogram Happy

Another indicator that you’ve chosen the perfect married name is your feeling toward monogramed or personalized items. Newlyweds who can’t help loading up on items like pillows, wine glasses, & ring dishes are typically happy with their new names. Think about it. If you’re purchasing items showcasing your new married name, you’re proud and excited about that decision and change!

Diner Delight

If you can contain your smiles as you make dinner reservations for Mr. and Mrs. Smith… guess what? You love your new married name! It is completely okay to revel in the newness of your marriage and name. Enjoy it! Hopefully as you are led to your 50th wedding anniversary dinner you will still smile as you hear your married name.

Now you know the 3 Ways to Know You Chose the Right Married Name. If you still haven’t changed your name, we can help! Use the MissNowMrs name change app or online service to streamline the process from 13 hours to 13 minutes.

Bravo TV & Married Name Change

There’s a running joke in the MissNowMrs office. When I come back from a meeting, I always ask “Did Martha call?” I’m a huge Martha Stewart fan. Occasionally, we hear from the editors of Martha Stewart Weddings, but Martha has yet to personally give me a buzz. So how does Bravo TV & married name change come together?

So, you can imagine my surprise when I asked if Martha called, and someone said “No, but Bravo TV did.” That’s one of the best parts of being an entrepreneur. The unexpected and incredibly interesting opportunities that stem from building a company and expertise in a certain area. Bravo TV isn’t launching a series chronicling married name change, but they were interested in my viewpoints on name change after marriage.

As I have spent the last decade helping hundreds of thousands of women transition from their maiden names to their married names, I’ve learned a great deal about the topic. I’ve seen shifts in naming conventions, such as maiden to middle name rising in popularity as hyphenated last names wane. There’s also a pretty incredible sociological shift occurring. Today’s brides are so comfortable in their equality in their relationships that they do not view name change as something that infers ownership or being a “lesser partner.” In fact, many of the brides I speak with see name change after marriage as a reflection of personal style or a way to symbolically show that they are “all in” in regards to their marriage.

If you’re curious what Bravo TV wrote about married name change, and the insights I shared. Here’s a link to their name change article. Happy reading!

Wedding Pro Wednesday: Laura C. Cannon

Today I am excited to introduce you to Laura C. Cannon. She is the founder of Ceremony Officiants™ is ranked the #1 wedding officiant company in the United States with more than a decade of experience creating beautiful, personalized ceremonies for couples of all backgrounds. Her diverse and friendly team of experienced professional officiants has performed over 3,000 weddings and maintains a perfect 5.0 average for reviews on WeddingWire and the Knot. In 2013 Laura launched a sister company, DC Elopements, which specializes in stress-free, simple elopements and mini-weddings in the Washington, D.C. area.

So, if you’re trying to decide on a wedding officiant or are curious what a career in “marriage” might be like… don’t miss Laura’s answers below!

Have you always been a wedding professional? If not, what was your previous career?
I was not always a wedding professional, but almost! The first company I started while still in college was an event planning company and weddings were certainly part of the mix. I sold that business and went on a spiritual journey that lead me to becoming ordained as a non-denominational minister. I always had the heart of an entrepreneur and was fortunate to grow up with two entrepreneurial parents. But having gone to college with the thought of having a typical 9-5 career, I decided that I had to travel down that path to have that experience. I worked in higher education in a salaried position and stayed there while I continued to officiate weddings and preside over funerals on the side. Eventually I decided to make the leap into working full-time in the wedding industry. I grew from solo-preneur to a team of wedding officiants that now covers several states, has spawned several other companies, including the formation of the International Association of Professional Wedding Officiants.

What inspired you to create your company?
I was inspired to create my company when a student of mine who knew I was ordained asked if I would perform her wedding ceremony. While doing her wedding I had what Oprah calls an “Aha” moment where everything became clear. I knew I was meant to do another wedding and that it was the perfect use of a variety of skills I had been honing for years. That first year I did a handful of weddings just from referrals. The business continued to grow and then I decided to bring on my first associate officiant. It’s now been almost 15 years and we’ve performed thousands of weddings!

What was your biggest obstacle and failure in going from idea to business?
While I am thankful for the fact that I did not experience and “failures” in my business, there were certainly challenges. I think as an entrepreneur starting out in a new industry the biggest hurdle to cross is dealing with the fact that you don’t know what you don’t know. Everything is new. I had the challenges of learning a business and the industry it was inextricably a part of all at the same time.

What do you love most about your job?
I LOVE LOVE. Seriously. Having the opportunity to bear witness to two people in love make a sacred commitment to each other is the greatest joy of my life. People ask me all the time, “Now that you are an author and a speaker and run all these businesses are you going to stop officiating weddings?” No way! There is a Sanskrit word, mudita, which means the joy derived from the joy of others. It is my favorite kind of joy and I get to experience mudita every time I officiate. It doesn’t get better than that.

What is your best advice for brides related to your area of expertise?
My #1 piece of advice for brides is to plan for your married life, not just a wedding. The wedding is one day. Yes, it is an amazing extra-special day, but ultimately it is really just the first day of your married life. We spend so much time planning for this event and we forget to put just as much emphasis on planning for a great partnership with our spouse. Spend some of your time considering what your married life will be like: What do you each need to do to contribute meaningfully to your relationship? How will you best support each other as life inevitably changes?

Laura C. Cannon’s best advice for newlyweds

COMMUNICATE. We often have different styles of communication and the way one person expresses love may not be the way the other person receives love. We have to learn how to explicitly communicate with our partner. Your partner is NOT a mind reader and yet sometimes when we are in relationship with someone for a long time we start to assume they should “just know” when something is wrong. No, they shouldn’t. It is up to each of you to be responsible for communicating your own desires and needs explicitly. Couples who communicate explicitly and frequently have deeper intimacy than those who don’t. And that deep intimacy with another human being is the true gift of marriage.

Photo Credits: Headshot – Denis Largeron, Wedding Couple Photo – Justine Ungaro

Did you love the story and advice of Laura C. Cannon? If so, don’t miss Valerie Hammer’s Wedding Pro Wednesday feature!

Married Name Change: 3 Nuances Every Newlywed Needs to Know

Tis the season for weddings, followed by millions of brides changing their names. While it might seem like a simple process, married name change had a great deal of nuance. The MissNowMrs experts came up with the 3 name change nuances every newlywed needs to know.

Once a newlywed has decided they want to change their name after marriage, They need to choose the option that best suits their situation and personal style. Thankfully we created the Married Name Game for that! Next she has to file a series of state and federal forms to change to her new name, and then notify all of her creditors. Once again, we’ve got the solution: MissNowMrs.com. So where does name-change nuance come in?!

There are several nuances, or subtle differences, to the married name change process that make it different from the legal name change process. Read on for the big three…

1. Newlyweds cannot change their first name.

Using the married name-change process, women cannot change or even correct a mis-spelling of their first name. They can only use their certified marriage certificates to file for a change to their last names, and sometimes their middle names.

2. Brides cannot omit their middle name.

Women changing their names after marriage can take their maiden name as a middle name or as a second middle name in most states, but they cannot completely eliminate their middle name and just have their first name and new last name as their legal name.

3. Blending last names isn’t possible.

Unless the newlywed is a resident of California and wrote a blended* last name on the marriage license application, she/he cannot use the married name change process. In the 49 other states, taking a blended last name requires petitioning the court system for a legal name change order. *A blended last name is a mixture of both partners names. For example Faltrow.

Now that you know the nuances of name change, you can move forward with confidence. It’s a complicated process from emotions, to societal expectations, to the actual legal process, but don’t worry… the MissNowMrs team has your back! You can also reference our married name change checklist to understand each of the steps in your transition to Mrs!