Mr. W and I spent yesterday running errands, one of which included depositing the shockingly generous monetary wedding gifts from friends and relatives. I had pre-warned Mr. W that the bank probably would not accept a check made out to Cindy Wonderful since there is no proof that we’re married, and probably would not accept ‘Mr. Wonderful and Cindy’ checks, either, without a joint account for deposit. I remembered that Flip Flop Girl and Wilco ran into that problem after their wedding. He brushed it off and said that’s impossible; as long as we BOTH sign the backs of the checks made out to both of us, the bank would honor it. I was dubious. And I turned out to be right. So after Mr. W’s ineffective mini fit, we opened up a joint checking account to deposit all the wedding checks. The banker was very nice, apologetic about the inconvenience but firm. If a check is made out to TWO people, they have to show proof that the money went to benefit both people, and depositing it into just 1 person’s account is considered improper/unethical/illegal/against procedure. If the checks had been made out to “Cindy OR Mr. W,” it’d be an entirely different story. What’s in a word? I was fine with it as I had wanted to open a joint account anyway to handle our household bills, but Mr. W had his personal accounts at a different bank and didn’t want to bank elsewhere.

While sitting there and waiting for the new account to process, we chatted with the banker, who was fairly recently married. His wife had juggled with the possibilities of changing her last name to his, hyphenating her last name with his, or keeping her maiden name intact. She decided to drop her middle name, make her maiden name her new middle name, and then add her husband’s as the family last name. My mom did that. And the banker told me about the procedures I’d have to go through to get the name change applied to DMV, passport, social security card, employer, bank accounts, credit cards, beneficiary information, trust information, property records, retirement, and it just snowballs from there. I’m not a spring chicken. I’m kind of a late summer kind of chick, so I’d have to link decades of credit history and stuff to my new name after notifying everyone of the change and sending proof of marriage. Mr. W turned to me and said, “Keep your last name.” I had been undecided but had recently started leaning toward becoming Cindy Wonderful, but my head was now swimming with the hassle so I agreed.

Yup, I’m still me. But I’ll answer to Mrs. Wonderful or Cindy Wonderful, and if I have kids, the school can call me Mrs. Wonderful to link me to Little Girl Wonderful and/or Little Boy Wonderful.

I think Mr. W should change his last name to mine, though.