How Exactly Do You Change Your Name Legally After your Sunshine Coast Wedding?
SO you’ve just had the most amazing and romantic day you’ve always dreamt of, your wedding was the vision of happiness that you’d imagined and had been planning for the last 18 months and with the help of your
Marriage Celebrant and other awesome Wedding Suppliers the event exceeded all your hopes and expectations, but now the day has come to a close, how exactly do you go about changing your name legally taking on the name of your spouse(if you wish)?
This is entirely optional of course and many Brides/partners choose not to change their name either because of career reasons, keeping part of their roots to their parents and heritage, they simply don’t see the need to or they quietly prefer their current name. Of course, either partner
can change their name, the age old tradition where for centuries the bride took on the name of her husband has been updated and modernised and either of you can take each others’ name or you can even double barrel them together. Many still do, particularly when they already have children and all wish to have the one surname.
Guidelines for achieving this vary a little from state to state within Australia but as your Celebrant, I will always make it a priority (as well as fulfilling my legal obligations to do so) to upload your documents to Births, Deaths and Marriages BDM in Brisbane the very same day of your your wedding so that this department can register your marriage and in effect give it a number, a little like the one you find on the top of your birth certificate. This means that you and your spouse’s marriage details will forever be recorded and held within this office whenever you wish to access them. Unless either of you are changing your name you may not actually require proof of marriage which the Official Certificate will give you.
As your celebrant, I will always assist you to obtain/apply for
your official marriage certificate when I upload all your other documents and hey presto, in your mailbox in approximately 2-3 weeks after your wedding, depending on the workload at the BDM at the time, you will receive your certificate.
You can then commence the process
of changing your name and I will give you hints on how to do this as well. It
is a little like changing address and I always advise you to take your time doing
it as each agency has its own procedure.
Pay particular attention to your passport and ensure that any tickets booked soon after the wedding are in your current name, until your passport is updated to your new name, otherwise problems WILL arise at the airport.
A couple of the most common questions I am asked is:
How do I sign the marriage certificate at the ceremony on my wedding day?
- Directly after your wedding, you will sign the marriage certificates with your usual signature, i.e. whatever you have been signing for the last few years! ...both of you...I often find that both partners need help in remembering what /how to sign on the day, such is the magnitude of the joy and elation, things that are common practice are temporarily forgotten!
Can I use the certificate the celebrant gives us on the day to change my name?
- The ceremonial certificate presented to you at the wedding by your celebrant is a beautiful memento but not legally valid for a name change.
When can I use my new name?
– Straight after the wedding, you can commence calling yourself by your newname; just remember that it will
not
be recognised by Medicare, your bank, Australian Passport Office, Qld Department of Transport and Main Roads(QDTMR) etc until you have forwarded to them a certified copy of your official certificate. In some cases for example, Department of Transport and Main Roads they require to see in person the original official certificate and your existing licence (there is no fee to do this at QDTMR)
We are going overseas a few days after our wedding, what is the fastest I can get my official certificate?
- Even you apply for the priority service offered from the BDM for an extra fee; it is unlikely you will receive this until 2 weeks after your wedding.
This is so important I am going to say it again: Pay particular attention to your passport and ensure that any tickets booked soon after the wedding are in your current name until your passport is updated to your new name, otherwise problems WILL arise at the airport.
Yes, you may change your name immediately on social media, and I usually find that by the time I have had a look at the photos on a newlyweds’ pages the following morning, the name has been changes, kind of a lovely and quick and easy way to acknowledge and shoutout to the world your newly married status!
Finally, this has to be one of my all time favourite ceremony memories... the tiny daughter of the just married couple placed her hand, of her own accord, next to her parents’ hands on their certificate! So divine ~
