After your marriage or civil partnership

After you have been married or have formed a civil partnership, you will need to inform various people and organisations that you have been married or have a civil partnership.

Who to inform

These usually include your employer, solicitors if you a will and also any life insurance, pensions and mortgages that you have.

This is not an exhaustive list and you should think of who needs to know that you have been married/formed a civil partnership particularly if you are intending on using another surname.

Changing your name after a marriage or civil partnership

The marriage or civil partnership certificate gives you the right to either

• Keep your current surname (you do not have to change your surname, it is only custom)
• Use the surname of your partner/spouse
• Use a double barrelled version of your name and your partner’s surname.

You do not have to obtain a change of name deed or do a deed poll for either of these two options, the marriage or civil partnership certificate is evidence of entitlement to your new name.

Changing your passport - advice about changing your passport can be found on the gov.uk changing passport information webpage [external link].

Changing your driving licence - advice about changing your driving licence can be found on the gov.uk change name driving licence webpage [external link].

If you have children

If the couple who have been married or formed a civil partnership have any children which they are both the natural parents of then you must update the child’s birth registration entry to reflect that their parents have now been married.

You still need to do this even if your child’s name is not changing and/or both parents were on the original birth entry.

The registrar at your marriage or civil partnership should explain this to you but if this hasn’t happened then contact the register office for advice.

You will be asked to:

• complete an application form to re-register the birth,
• provide evidence you have been married/formed a civil partnership ie. we will copy your marriage or civil partnership certificate
• one of the parents will attend an appointment at the register office to re-register the birth which in effect updates the child’s birth entry to reflect that their parents have now been married.
• There is no fee to re-register a child’s birth after marriage but you will need to pay for each updated birth certificate that you require. Please see our fees page for current charges.

You should do this as soon as you can after the marriage/civil partnership and must do this before you apply for, or renew a passport for your child otherwise your child’s birth registration entry is no longer correct.

The application form and more information about re registering a birth entry after a marriage or civil partnership can be found on the gov.uk website [external link]