Legal

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!

PA Maiden to Middle Name Change After Marriage Update!

Attention Pennsylvania brides and newlyweds: we have a PA maiden to middle name update! You now have the right to change your maiden name to your middle name, after marriage! After several years of saying “no”, the PA DMV has recently updated their position on maiden to middle name change. As long as you file certain forms ahead of your state driver’s license and bring specific forms of ID showing your maiden name as your middle name, you can now take your maiden name on your PA driver’s license without going through the legal name change process. Whoohoo!

The PA DMV will allow maiden to middle name change after marriage, IF you can show a Social Security card with your maiden name as a middle name and 2 of the following forms of ID with that same name: voter registration, passport, tax records or any form or government issued photo IDs. So as long as you file for your new SS card and your other forms of ID and wait to receive them before you file for your PA driver’s license, you’ll have no issues changing your middle name in Pennsylvania!

Interested in taking your maiden name as their middle name? The MissNowMrs name change app and service can save you 13 hours of hassle!

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Potential Name Change Voter Woes

We’ve heard a symphony of name change voter woes over the years. As you know, many women in the United States opt to change their names after marriage. The ideal scenario is to change your name right after your wedding on every identification document you have, down to your gym membership card. While this is the ideal, it rarely happens.

Day-to-day newlywed life and its balance of work, love, friends, family, etc leaves little room for standing in long office lines until you’re an official Mrs. Until recently, there weren’t too many consequences to partially changing your name, but times they are a changing.

One of the new possible consequences of halfway changing your name: not being able to vote. I just read an article in the Columbia Daily Tribune and the author is very concerned about a mandate regulating what forms of ID are considered acceptable proof of citizenship before you can cast a ballot. The mandate in Missouri would require any person who wanted to vote to show a valid driver’s license or U.S. passport in their legal name.

That can be a bit sticky for a woman who changed her name with Social Security, but not on her driver’s license and/or passport. Should the mandate pass, there will probably be a mad dash to the DMV to make the necessary updates, or scads of ladies turned away on election day due to mismatches.

The moral of the story is, if you change your name after marriage be sure to do it completely! Using a name change service like MissNowMrs can streamline the process and save you hours of time and costly future headaches.

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What do you think of the Missouri Photo ID mandate? Is the state you’re living in considering something similar?