UK citizen, living and getting married in Germany to a German. How do I go about changing my surname?
UK citizen, living in Germany for the last 5.5 years now marrying a German national in Baden-Württemberg in the Standesamt. We just got approval and an official date on 26th June! Now I need to know how to go about changing my surname in both countries.
I have my honeymoon September 14th 2026 in Asia with my new name and my hen do in London early July, with maybe some travel to Ireland in June/July for work (these flights aren’t booked)
I have taken a look at the gov.uk website and honestly they are so vague it doesn’t feel helpful. I contacted them and the reply was the same as the search results with the extra sprinkle of „the embassy doesn’t help with this.“ what they did say is that changing my passport with a new name will automatically change my name.
But how do I prove this? My marriage certificate? They also advised getting a lawyer for my name change, but what type of lawyer would I need and why do I need one? I read you can pre-order your new passport with the married name 3 months early but the document* is not in German and puts legal obligation on the person at the Standesamt to cancel said name change and passport of the wedding doesn’t go through for whatever reason. I can’t imagine someone from the Standesamt wanting to take on that legal responsibility.
Any advice on this would be helpful!