Oh, what's in a name?

I'm pretty sure that I'm going to take Chris' last name.  I thought hard about hyphenating, but with my name being a verb and his a noun, I didn't really want my name also being a sentence (pause for a moment and think about that a bit).  If I were farther along in my career, I would probably keep my own last name and maybe Chris would take my last name or we would just both keep our own last names.  If I had more property or assets in my name than Chris, I think Chris and I would think long and hard about him taking my last name.  As it is, I'm not one for tradition one way or the other, but I do think that the expectation that you take your husband's last name is a bit antiquated.  Chris has a good lawyer-y sounding last name, so that's the reason why I'm taking his (for real.  Wouldn't you want a lawyer named "Victor" representing you?).

The biggest challenge and hassle is changing your name on all official documents.  Seriously.  Don't you think that since traditionally the bride plans the wedding, then the groom should have to change his last name?  It seems unfair to make the bride do both.  I guess since Chris is pretty hands on in this wedding, that's not really a good argument here, but whatever.  Do you know just how many things need to be changed?  Social Security, Drivers License, Bank Accounts, Credit Cards, and the list goes on and on.

So there's this website called MissNowMrs.com where you can change your maiden name to your married name on all your official documents, credit cards, etc.  I've seen this come up on a lot of blogs and in a lot of magazines and they all say how awesome it is.

I always wondered about the actual usefulness of this site.  Did some googling, and found someone who said that it just wasn't worth the $30.  Most everything can be done easily yourself and for free and the fact of the matter is that you have to do a lot of legwork for MissNowMrs.com anyway.  She made a great list of all the things you need to change and (kinda) how to do it.  I will definitely be bookmarking this site.  What are your thoughts about keeping your own last name vs. taking his?