Getting married isn’t cheap, not by any means. We, thankfully, have had wonderful family around us who’ve paid for ‘most everything; for which I am awesomely grateful. But I’ve just discovered that there are some things you only discover afterwards. We spent a lot of time discussing it, and decided to change our names to match. Kathryn has an extra degree of complexity in that civil partnerships aren’t recognised by the US (they are by 26 other countries though! :) ), and so I’m not quite sure how her change of name works.
In the UK, you can actually change your name just by using the new one. The Civil Partnership document grants a degree more legal proof to it, and makes it easy to get things like passports and driving licences.But while it’s required that you update your passport (it must match your legal name) it’s not *free*.
IÂ actually have to get a new passport – they can’t just re-issue me with a replacement for my current one. Very generously they’ll give me an extension to the run of the new passport of ‘up to nine months’. Well, woot. Only my passport has 7 years left to run. And for this generous service they bill you a mere 72 quid. Interestingly, the driving licence is free (although I might get my expired 25kw restriction removed, thanks very much, and that costs 17.50).
So far I’ve come up with 22 companies, groups, societies, agencies, workplaces that I need to inform. Make that 24. No, 25. Each time I think I’m nearing the end of my list I come up with another… :-/
Augh. The photocopier at work will be getting much use to copy the Civil Partnership document for mailing out to…everyone. :)
