One of the more common questions you get asked when people find out you’re getting married is “So will you be changing your name then?” Generally it’s directed at women, but more men are hearing it too, and if you’re in a same-sex relationship then double-barrelling is flagged up as an option.

I'm only changing my surname!

But one of the problems is just how much stuff you end up needing to change, and how many different ways there are for doing so. After getting married in April I’m now in the process of getting things updated with my new surname, and frankly I’ve had some mixed results with it!

Work

I’m quite lucky to work for a large employer with lots of HR staff dotted around the place, and they have plenty of experience in updating your details. All I needed to do was show up at the HR office with my marriage certificate, wait for a colour copy to be sorted on the photocopier, and that was it. My colleague in HR sorted out my payroll, HR record and pensions information so it was all swapped over in less than a week! I count myself very lucky to have found it this easy, obviously your work place may be slower or require you to fill out extra forms.

Verdict: 5/5

Banks

My main bank since my student days is Barclays, and through Google I managed to find the page on their website that said I just needed to take my marriage certificate in to a branch and they would sort it from there. So I did exactly that, and spent just over five minutes with a staff member going through the process. Originally it came across as very easy, again they took a colour copy of my marriage certificate, and I was told that a new debit card and chequebook would be in the post shortly.

However when things arrived it became very clear that something had gone wrong. Although they had updated my title, so I was now “Mrs”, they’d left my maiden name as my surname. Cue a certain amount of frustration, especially when I went to a second branch to sort it out (I didn’t want to go back to the first for obvious reasons). They could see that something had gone wrong with the changeover, although they didn’t tell me what, but they couldn’t fix it until I handed over my marriage certificate again. I therefore had to make a third trip, certificate in tow. I ended up with yet another new card and another new chequebook, but thankfully in the correct name.

I also have a mortgage with my husband through Halifax. This time it was closer to ten minutes as the staff member had to fill out what seemed to be an extremely long online form. Not only did they need my previous name, new name, my address and my mortgage account number, but I was also asked about my current wage! I even had to check that they weren’t going to change my mortgage in anyway as some of the questions seemed too personal for what was a change of surname. Once more the marriage certificate was copied, and the online form had to be printed off and the whole thing sent to a head office through Halifax’s postal system.

The disappointing thing with Halifax, apart from the questions, was that I was told it would only take three days to sort out and I would receive a text message to confirm it had gone through. Despite them having my mobile number (I’ve had texts from them in the past) I never received anything to confirm the name change had gone through. We only realised it had been processed a week later when we checked our mortgage account online, and found it was now titled “Mr & Mrs” with one surname.

Verdicts;

Barclays – 3/5

Halifax – 4/5

Electoral register

This got done this week as we received a letter about updating details online. No need to photocopy or send off the marriage certificate, we just logged in with the code we were sent on the letter, and there was an option for me to change my surname on one of the pages. Obviously until I next get a polling card I won’t be certain that it’s gone through fine, but it seemed to be a smooth process.

Being on the electoral register is important for your credit rating, so keeping it up to date with your name and current address should be standard. When you get one of these letters, double check they’ve spelled your details correctly, and amend them online if not.

Verdict: 5/5

Driving licence

I’ve only just sent this off (very naughty I know), so hopefully this will go through fine! I’ve deliberately left this late as it’s the first time I’ve needed to send off my marriage certificate and I’m worried it’ll get lost in the post, or damaged by the DVLA (a friend of mine had a bad experience with hers). I collected a form from the Post Office, filled it in with all the details, and have now posted it off with my driving licence and the marriage certificate. It should take three weeks for the new to make its way back to me, and hopefully my marriage certificate will come back in one piece too!

Verdict: 5/5 for getting the form from the post office, ?/5 for getting it back!

HMRC

I expected them to be the biggest nuisance with this kind of thing, but it appears not! All I had to do was fill in an online form, including the date that we married and some information about my husband, and that was that! But again, I’ve only done it recently so any problems won’t have arisen yet. But for ease of use I’ve found them one of the better ones to deal with, even if it was a little time consuming.

Verdict: 5/5, so far!

I haven’t got around to sorting out our utility bills (energy and broadband are in my name), and I haven’t done my passport as I’ll need to pay £95 for a new one to change my name! But so far I feel I’m making progress, and this doesn’t even include all my shop loyalty cards that have also been swapped over!

Lace Handkerchief - Something Borrowed

In the final part of my mini wedding series, I want to talk about my "something borrowed". After deciding on my something old, something new, and something blue, my borrowed became a little more difficult. I was thinking of borrowing a piece of jewellery, but the neckline of my dress was already fairly high, and I don't really know anyone who wears a lot of bracelets.

Photo by Maria Carrington Photography

In the end my in-laws helped me, without me even mentioning it to them. My mother-in-law carried a special piece of her new husband's family history down the aisle, and they decided to pass it on to me. This beautiful lace handkerchief was a gift to my father-in-law's mother. She married her husband in the 1940s, at the height of World War 2. As a sailor my father-in-law's father was shipped off to various parts of the world during the course of the war, and at one point he was sent to Belgium, leaving behind his now-pregnant wife.

When news came that his wife had given birth to a son, my father-in-law, the young husband decided to buy his wife a beautiful Belgian lace handkerchief from Bruges. I have no idea how he managed to keep it from getting mucky or damaged in the following weeks, but at some point he was allowed home to visit his wife and new baby son, and give her his beautiful present.

It became a treasured family heirloom, and when my mother-in-law married in to the family it was given to her to use as her "something borrowed". It's been carefully stored away ever since, taken on every house move in the following years, until our wedding led to my mother-in-law retrieving it from it's safe place. I was very touched when they asked me to carry it as my something borrowed, and had it tucked away safely in my dress when I walked down the aisle to my new husband. Although that happy couple from the 1940s weren't able to be there on our special day, a little piece of their family history was. One day I hope it'll be passed down to another bride coming in to the family.

Engagement Ring - Something Old

Following on from my recent wedding posts on my Something Blue and Something New, today I've written about my Something Old! I've mentioned before that the old rhyme "Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue" took a while to return to my head. This led to a small amount of panic on my part when I realised I'd forgotten it, but in the end my something old was the easiest choice, as I went for my beautiful engagement ring. 

Big hand, little hand, engagement ring!

Me and my now-husband had quite a time finding it. He was living in Leigh-on-Sea at the time, so during one of my weekend visits to see him we decided to book out a Saturday morning to go ring shopping. There’s two very nice jewellers in Leigh itself, and if they failed then we could get the train to Southend and continue our search there. My OH had originally considered getting a ring custom made and had researched stones for it, but in the end he was so worried about getting the “wrong” ring that he insisted he needed my help.

The shops we visited in Leigh had some very nice rings, but nothing that really jumped out at me. So we went on to Southend, and spent a good few hours wandering around. We visited the big chain shops, we popped in to little pawn shops and independent jewellers. There were plenty of nice rings, but none that I could really see as being my engagement ring.

I think we were at the point of giving up and trying again somewhere else at some other weekend when we went down a side road and found another shop. As we stood looking in the window one particular ring jumped out at me. It was labelled as an “antique”, and looked so pretty in the window that I had to go in and try it on. My main fear was that it would be too small, as I’d read online that it’s quite difficult to increase ring size, but happily it fit fine (slightly too big, as I’d later find out, but I’d rather have the size reduced than increased!)

I’ve since worked out that the ring probably dates from the 1920s as I’ve found similar ones on Etsy marked as such. When I eventually took it to a jeweller in Cambridge they asked me if it was a family heirloom as they thought it was an old ring (it also turned out that some of the stones were damaged, so I have to be careful with it!), and although I don’t know the history of it, it was lovely to have a genuinely old ring as my “something old” to wear down the aisle!

Wedding Dress- Something New

Isn't the wedding dress the main thing that people focus on when talking about weddings with the prospective bride? I'm pretty sure the two main questions I was asked in the run-up to mine were "Have you picked a date? Have you bought your dress?" in that specific order. For me I figured that my dress would be the easiest "something new" that I'd be able to think of, so it held a little extra symbolism for me as I walked down the aisle.

Photo by Maria Carrington Photography

If you've planned your wedding over the course of two years and saved up enough money for it, then spend when you want on your dress! For me though it was a case of necessity, I needed to find a dress for under £300. I didn't even bother trying to make appointments in any of the bridal shops around Cambridge and Essex, because I knew that a budget of £300 would raise eyebrows and a "Nope, can't be done" comment. Instead I looked to the high street, where some well-known names cater to those of us who have a more modest budget requirement for their bridal gown.

Sadly BHS went bankrupt while I was doing my search, I had actually identified a dress on their website that I was mentally placing as "second option" since I liked it, but wasn't sure it would suit me. At only £150 it would have been well under my planned budget and I could have put the money to something else, but it wasn't to be. (Incidentally, has anyone pointed out to M&S that they've now got a potential market to move in to, I bet they'd do some lovely simple dresses that were quite affordable!)

Photo by Maria Carrington Photography

I had a look at Debenhams, who have a whole wedding section that covers brides, grooms and bridesmaids clothing! But although there were some very nice dresses on their site, including modern styles and vintage styles, there just wasn't anything in particular that jumped out at me.

Last but not least there was Monsoon! When it comes to regular clothing they are a bit on the pricey side, but I'd been told that they did nice wedding dresses that wouldn't break the budget, so I decided to give them a look.

It ended up being quite a difficult choice as there were several that I liked! In the end I bought the gorgeous "Carlotta" bridal dress, and managed to find a 10% discount code online that meant I saved a little bit as it only just fell within the £300 budget. Because I'd bought it from a shop it looked a bit difficult to get it adjusted as I needed, in the end my mother-in-law had to rush to the rescue with needle and thread to stop me tripping over it! But I absolutely loved the dress, I got a lot of lovely compliments about it, and I really wish I had an excuse to wear it all over again!

Wedding Shoes - Something Blue

Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue! With only a few weeks to go until my wedding these words finally popped in to my head, and I realised that I was might struggle to fill all the requirements! In the end my something old and something new were relatively easy, and will be covered in future blog posts.

But it was something borrowed and something blue that were the real problems. My future in-laws solved "something borrowed" for me, I carried a little piece of my fiance's family history down the aisle with me on my wedding day, before returning it to my mother-in-law.

Photo by Maria Carrington Photography

So that just left something blue. I'd been planning on buying blue converse for some time and using
those as my something blue. But the problem with being a woman of average height (I'm slightly over 5 foot 5) is that my wedding dress was a bit too long, and I couldn't get it altered as I didn't buy it from a proper wedding shop. That meant I had to bite the bullet, give up on my idea of being a Converse bride, and get some shoes to make me a little taller, and hopefully lift up the hem of my dress a bit.

The only problem was actually finding them. I'm not the best shopper, especially when it comes to shoes. I wear hiking boots most of the time, with my dark red converse when the boots aren't feasible, or smart black flats when I'm taking part in an event at work.

I didn't really know where to look, and with time starting to run out I took to Facebook in a call for help! A friend on there pointed me towards Irregular Choice, who do some really amazing shoes, but sadly a lot of them were out of my budget, and also looked a little impossible for me to actually walk in.

A Google browse introduced me to Ruby Shoo, and after a long browse I finally thought I'd found the ones I wanted. But when I went to buy them they only had them in one rather large size, they were last season's shoes and were no longer being sold!

eBay then came to the rescue! Not only did I manage to find the ones I wanted in my size, but I got them a bit cheaper than others listed because the seller had spelled the company as "Ruby Shoes", they weren't coming up on an eBay search but were showing via Google shopping!

Photo by Maria Carrington Photography

I'm not one for heels and these are definitely higher than I'm used to at the best of times! My work colleagues thought it was great fun to see me tottering around the office in them as I learned to walk (slowly and carefully) in high heels, and learned how to hold myself standing up so my feet would hurt less. I even wore them in the kitchen while I did the cooking.

But after a week and a half of practising I knew I wouldn't be able to manage the whole wedding in them, I just wasn't used to it, and eleven days wasn't enough for me to get used to them.I got my blue converse too, and had two something blues on my wedding day!

What was your something blue?

Wedding - One Week Later!

This time last week I was getting ready for my wedding! My Other Half proposed to me last May on a holiday to Rome, and my desire to get married on his next birthday (our anniversary sadly fell on a week day) meant that we had just under a year to plan and arrange everything (and save up for it).

We decided to get married at the Great Dunmow Maltings as it was a nice small venue (we only had 40 people we wanted to invite), very affordable, and they were very flexible about what we could do for catering. Plus we could have the ceremony and the reception in the same venue, which was an added bonus since we had guests with small children who wouldn't want to shuffle them in to car seats for a short drive somewhere else.

My Mum suggested that we have an afternoon tea for the reception. Me and Jon aren't big party/dance people (and I don't drink) so having a long evening dinner and dancing thing really wasn't something we wanted to go with. Plus we have quite a few family members and friends with dietary requirements (gluten free and dairy free being the two main ones), so being able to let them pick and choose what they wanted to eat was the easiest way to ensure that they felt welcome, and wouldn't feel that they had to say "no thank you" to our invitation. My Mum did an amazing job sorting out all the food, including spending weeks testing different gluten-free scone recipes (my Dad is now a bit sick of the sight of scones), and baking them and cakes in the run-up to the event. My in-laws sourced all the drinks, and did a great job as everyone managed to find something they wanted, from a nice glass of bubbly through to a selection of soft drinks for the non-drinkers.

The afternoon tea thing also gave us the opportunity to spend a lot of time sourcing vintage china. Between both families we've been through charity shops, junk shops and eBay collecting all manner of pieces. My mother-in-law even found a lovely teapot (not vintage but still gorgeous) with a lavender pattern while she and my father-in-law were on holiday in Canada! She managed to get it home in her suitcase without damaging it, and it's now sitting happily on my kitchen shelf.

We also wanted to source some handmade items where our budget allowed. In the end the four things we managed to get were our wedding rings (mine from Nikki Stark Jewellery and Jon's from Grow With The Grain), the boutonnieres from Alana Phoenix & Co, and our dried confetti flowers from Shelsley Herbs & Flowers, who was brilliant and posted them by special delivery when we bought them a bit too close to our wedding date! Being a former Etsy seller myself, it was great to be able to get a few things from small creative businesses, and every shop was lovely to deal with.

Our lovely photographer was Maria Carrington, who was great to work with as she's seen lots of weddings and was a very calming presence. I don't have the photos from her yet, so she'll get her own little post in a few weeks once we've seen the shots and picked a few to show on here!

We generally had an absolutely fantastic day. It was lovely to have so many people we loved be able to share it with us, despite some of the distances there were to travel! We'd recommend every single business that I've linked to on here, as they all helped make our special day one to remember!

Ohio!

I would like to apologise now for the lack of posts in the past two weeks. I went on holiday to Cincinnati in Ohio because a friend there was getting married and I was invited to the wedding. This meant that I didn’t make a post because I was on holiday and then when I came back I went straight back to work so spent the following weekend catching up on my sleep and chores.

However I am happy to say that I had a lovely time in Cinci! I was staying with my lovely friend Meg, who was one of the bridesmaids, and also got to see Ames (maid of honour) and Beth (the bride). I left London while it was in a heatwave and found that Ohio was in one as well. It was a good thing I had packed a pair of shorts with me “just in case” since I would have baked to a crisp in my jeans.

Cincinnati Museum, photo by me.

We went to the Cincinnati History Museum, which was very cool, it’s made out of an old train terminal (we don’t have anything the same size in London as we’re still using all our train terminals). We ended up in the natural history wing where we found Native American artefacts, stuffed animals, and a cave! I’ve never been in a cave in a museum before, it had running water and everything, suddenly I wanted to close down Waterloo and turn it into a museum complete with a very nifty cave!

Ice cream! Photo by Meg.

Ames, Beth and Tim The Groom took me to Skyline for a Cincinnati Three-way, which is chilli on top of spaghetti with grated cheese. The cheese was orange! Cheddar cheese is not meant to be orange! As far as “comfort food” (my uncle described it as such when I told him about it) goes I think the British can do much better, if any of them come to the UK I will be sure to make them a nice toad in the hole to prove what comfort food really is. Thankfully the next day I could forget all about their strange orange cheese because Meg took me to an ice cream place and we had cookie dough ice cream that was AMAZING, even better than Ben & Jerry’s (creamier and less sugar-stuffed).

Me and Liz at the Reception, photo by April Besl.

 

There was also a bachelorette party (which was fun but ended in true legendary “we won’t talk about it” style) and a rehearsal dinner and before we knew it the wedding day was here! It was a really lovely wedding, and along with only being my second ever wedding it was also the first time I had seen a Catholic mass. The reception was a lot of fun, I haven’t danced so much for quite a long time. Every time I sat down for a breather I was pulled back up to my feet again. I had to have quite a long lie in the next morning. Between the rehearsal dinner, the wedding and the reception I managed to get to know a whole bunch of people, so a big thank you to Cheryl (poppet XD), Manny, Liz, April, Morgan, Kirk (aka "Ames' bloke") and Karl (aka "Ames' brother") for being fantastic company!

It's not traditional for the Beefeaters in London to kill people with spades,

but apparantly it's common in Ohio.

And then on Sunday, the day before I was flying home, Ames took me, Meg, Liz and Liz' husband Brad to a renaissance faire! We don’t have anything like that in the UK that I know of. We spent the entire day there, live music, people in costume, jousting, the whole nine yards and it was completed by perfect weather, it was an excellent day out! Monday was spent sleeping, packing, seeing some parks in Cinci and having one of the BEST burgers I've tasted before Ames dropped me off at the airport and I had to say my goodbyes.

So a big thank you to Meg, Ames and Beth for a fantastic week in the USA! And many congratulations to the bride and groom, Beth and Tim, and here's to many happy years!