When your fiancée suddenly becomes your wife, you will have to get used to a whole new introduction in social situations.   For you, it's not so bad.   "This is my... wife , Cheryl."   It will be a process of trial and error that will start with the occasional "girlfriend" or "fiancée" and will eventually become an automatic "wife."

When it comes to yourwife , however, being a married woman now means a potential rebirth in the eyes of every company on the planet with whom you're associated. It also means your wife may be shedding her family name forever, which carries its own set of emotions.

A University of Florida study by Diana Boxer involving 134 married women ranging in age from their 20s to their 70s who lived in various parts of the United States, found that only 18 percent had kept their own names, compared with 77 percent who took a husband's name.

Despite the trend to revert to tradition, you should know you have more than one option as a married couple as to what to do about the name thing. (And this choice is ultimately a personal one.)

The Old-Fashioned Option

The most traditional approach to post-nuptial naming is for the wife to adopt your surname and discard her own.   This may take some time for her to get used to, especially if she has a fondness (or preference) for her name. This will also require her to diligently change her name to yours on all existing accounts and documents.   This can be a long and tedious task, but there are services out there to lighten the load. MissNowMrs.com is one of these services. There you can enter the name change in one place and MissNowMrs.com will make the change for your Social Security, IRS, U.S. Passport, U.S. Postal Service, Driver's License and Certified Marriage Certificate(s) documents. This does require some entering of information, a fee, and some printing, but is far easier than tackling each document separately.

The Hyphenated Option

This approach to re-naming can be a good compromise for those women who wish to state that they're yours and also still themselves. It can conjure up images of royalty or power-hungry, self-important women, but in the end, the call is hers. For teachers and for women with established careers, this option is understandable. article continues...
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