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Maybe your DH can change his name and save you the hassle!

I kept my name! I don't think anyone has ever assumed we aren't married. I think it's crap women are expected to give up their last names when they get married while the man gets to keep his last name.

I changed everything over fairly quickly but we live in USA. I had it all changed in less then two weeks. The only thing I haven't changed yet is my passport. I need to renew it so I will be finally changing it over.

I started 9 day after our wedding (as soon as I go the marriage certificate in the mail). I got my SS card (at least the paperwork for it) that day, and was able to use that to get a new D. I think our bank took another few days, and then magazines and such I just did slowly over the next month or so. The important, official stuff took about a week, I think.

We went on a week long honeymoon and I had my name changed the week after we returned. It didn't take long at all but we are in the U.S.

I did it like a week later. I only had a small window of time where I could renew my passport for free (I had needed a new one for our honeymoon and then you have like 6 months to make a change for free). And we didn't want to have to pay again down the line.

Still not changed, 5 years and counting. We were in the process of moving across the country and thus we were signing apartment leases and job contracts, transferring teachers licenses, registering cars, etc..... just seemed too difficult at the time, plus I was working 70 hours a week without any personal time allowed.

No one has ever assumed we're not married (probably bc we're joined at the hip) but people sometimes refer to him as Mr. MyLastName; if they meet him through me.

My name is also a lot easier than his name.

Less than a week?

In California, it was easy because I changed my name on the marriage license, so once we received the certificate, it had my new last name. I brought that to social security office, the dmv and then slowly changed my credit cards and bank account by calling and then giving them the info they needed. As things came up that had my maiden, I changed them. All in all, it took a few months maybe but it wasn't difficult. I still haven't updated my passport though and kept it at my maiden for an overseas trip 2.5 years after we got married. Just booked everything under my maiden name.

I started about 2 months after we got married 5 years ago. Social Security, then Driver's License, bank stuff, credit cards, etc... the last thing was my passport and I did that this past winter because we had a trip planned and my passport had expired.

I would think maybe going to the US embassy they would be able to help you through the process over seas. You will probably need to certify mail a lot of paperwork back and forth to the various agencies. For Credit cards and stuff I could just fax copies of my new ID and Marriage Cert.

ETA: I don't live over seas and the this past april was the first international flight i had taken since we were married

Four years and I haven't bothered to change it. You all are making me wonder if I could even if I wanted to, as I don't know that I have a copy of our marriage certificate. Hmm . . .

So I don't know if this is officially legal, but I changed my name by just adding his last to my last.
I did not hyphenate and I did not move my maiden to my middle. I literally have two last names. Sometimes I use just one, sometimes I use both.
I did not change anything I had before I was married, so all of my banking, credit cards, etc just have my maiden last.

All I did was stand in line at the social security office with my marriage license and got my ss card changed. Then when my license expired a few months later I added both last names to it. I haven't changed anything else, but I have opened accounts with just my married last name since then.

I've been married for almost three years now and I haven't run into any issues at all. I've flown with tickets bought with just my maiden name listed and just my married name listed. Again, no problems. (Although, I am upper-middle class and white - I imagine I might get more scrutiny if that wasn't the case).

I image it would also be different living abroad.

I actually didn't change my name until 2.5 years after we were married. It was causing more problems than it was worth. I didn't want to change it, but I moved my maiden name to my middle name and dropped my middle. I sign everything first, middle, last. It has helped and I can't imagine now the problems I would encounter having a different name than my children.

@lady baltimore: You can call the county you got married in and they'll send it to you--if you ever wanted to change it. We had to mail our ORIGINAL marriage certificate in to get my passport changed...it totally freaked me out that it would get lost in the mail!

@Chillybear: most likely. I renewed my passport right before our wedding so I still have a while before I have to cross that bridge. My status here will also be changing before then so I can probably change my name when that happens.

I never did. DH took my name right away though.

@looch: I am now, but when we applied for my residence permit I was on a worker visa so rather than change my name during the application process we waited it out. My permit took two years, adding a name change to the process would have only delayed it and I was 37 weeks pregnant and not wanting and delays.

It was changed within two weeks. It wasn't that difficult for me to do. I was starting a new job soon after so I wanted to avoid confusion.

I think most of it was done over the course of a year. My passport wasn't done until it expired (two years after we were married), and I still have a Visa in my maiden name.

We got married over 3 years ago and my drivers licence and passport are still in my maiden name. For all other things I use my married name though.