Congratulations, you are married and now comes some of the tedious "stuff".
Are you going to change your surname? This is an option and you don't have to do this, but if you want to, keep reading.
In one of my other lives, I work for the Australian Electoral Commission at elections, or more recently, the referendum. Yesterday at the referendum, I had so many newly married women (this could be men too, but in m case yesterday, it was only women) who came to me with their married name and I couldn't find them on the roll. They showed me their drivers licence with their new name on it and said they had changed it. I asked if they had changed it on the Electoral Roll and they looked at me blankly and said, "but I did it on my licence and that was meant to make it happen". Never fear, we found them under their maiden name and they were able to vote.
So where do you need to change your surname and what do you need?
Firstly you need your official marriage certificate- the one your celebrant (especially in QLD) can order for you when registering your marriage with QLD Birth, Deaths and Marriages. This isn't the pretty one we give you on the day. If your celebrant didn't order it (and you didn't get the email to pay for the certificate from BDM, you can contact them directly and order yourself). More information on ordering your certificate yourself can be found here.
With this certificate in hand here are some of the places you may want to change your name (remember, you don't have to do this) :
* Drivers Licence
* Passport
* Banks and other financial institutions
* Your workplace and ATO
* Medicare
* Any pension related departments (Centrelink etc)
* Your lawyer if you have already lodged a will (if not- this is a big thing to ALSO do)
* Superannuation accounts
* Utilities and phone
* Online accounts
Some links to help you:
Australian passport:
QLD driver's licence:
Australian Medicare card (you may want a family card!):
Australian Electoral Commission
Now, you can change your name fully without certificate via Deed Poll.
This is for when your create a new name that is not a joining of your family names (with a hyphen), then this is not a name change by marriage but is an official name change which is commonly known as a name change by deed poll. I'm not going to go into this right now, but if you want to read more about it:
Hope this helps,
AngieJ x
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