Your Destination Wedding: Flight Tips and More

Using the term "maiden name" is so very antiquated. "Birth name" is gender neutral and more appropriate for a newspaper article.

"“Personally, I flew with my wedding dress five years ago and found that by letting flight attendants and nearby customers know that I was carrying precious cargo in the overhead bin, they were happy to help me out and look for storage space elsewhere."

Amazing. No, make that incredible. So here are my questions:

Which airline was this that had such cavernous overhead bins - not to mention such accommodating passengers?

And does it still?

At a destination wedding, is it preferable to have presents shipped to the home address or to the destination wedding site? Is there a search technique to find the couple's registry?

what does this mean...
"What if you already bought plane tickets for your honeymoon in your maiden name? Should you pay to expedite a new passport?"
if you bought plane tickets with yr maiden name, why would you need a new passport? its already in yr maiden name surely???

An article with very obvious "tips".

The destination wedding- inconvenient for everyone!

There was no mention of an important issue. Where does the couple get the marriage license? A marriage license issued in a state, say Kentucky, is only valid for a marriage conducted in Kentucky. So folks considering marrying in Aruba, Jamaica, or some other romantic spot need to take care that the license they have creates a valid marriage.

You mean brides are still giving up their own identities and taking on their husbands' names? Wake up, women! Stop branding yourselves like cattle.

You know, there are LOTS of reasons people change names when they marry. Perhaps they are blending names into a new name. Perhaps they are hyphenating. Perhaps they are both women and have decided to use just one common last name because they flat out like it better. Or maybe it's the husband who is changing his last name to his wife's last name. Maybe it's a woman who had an abusive father and who is happy to change her last name. Don't assume that the only time a name gets changed is when the bride adopts her husband's name out of "tradition."

Having said that -- in order to change your name on a legal document like a passport or a driver's license, you're going to need your completed marriage license. You will not be able to change your name on ANY legal document until after the wedding.

When planning your honeymoon, book reservations in the name that will be on whatever ID you will have with you and need for the trip. If you are leaving for a foreign destination immediately after the wedding or are flying (even domestically), book the ticket in the name on your current passport or the driver's license you will use at the airport. No one will care that you "go by" a different name -- all they care about is that the ticket and ID match.

Only book a ticket in your married name if you have plenty of time post-wedding to change your ID -- and if you KNOW you will actually go through with getting it done!

If honeymoon air tickets were purchased in maiden name and current passport is in maiden name why not just travel with maiden name documents and change after honeymoon? Why is there a need to rush and change passport documents or show marriage certificate? As long as both documents match the airlines and customs shouldn't have an issue. Unless I'm missing some information how would either know you just got married?

Take it from a few of my firends, changing names on official documents, first of all, is not necessary on the DAY OF your wedding. And take it from me, changing names is NEVER necessary. If you choose to do so, that's fine for you but don't complain about all the hassle it involves. And the same with wedding dress traveling. Everyone coming to your "destination" wedding who isn't your best friend from age 5 or your immediate family, are just Not that excited about the wedding part, maybe the vacation part! Get the wedding out of the way and let people enjoy their vacation. And again, people are perfectly capable of figuring out how to ask for help storing a dress. I don't know why NYT has to publish this stuff. It's all so obvious! Again, don't complain about whatever hassle YOU YOURSELF created!

I would just like to note that in our modern age, when many couples meet and begin their lives together somewhere that is not home to either side of the family, you, willy nilly, find yourself having a destination wedding--with everyone driving or flying to be with the bride and groom. We live in Michigan; most of our family lives in the DC/Philly/NY corridor; the groom's family is all from California. Their college friends are all over the country. The wedding is in Chapel Hill. That's modern reality in many families.

I'm a Seamstress specializing in bridal. This IS a real concerns for ladies with destination weddings. I have to advise my clients nearly every week on this matter.This article got it right. I've never heard of an airline not happily cooperating, Yes if time is not of the essence they should ship and arrange for repressing if needed in the location it is destined for.
HOWEVER. This is not always possible and due to lost luggage issues they don't want to pack it in a suit case. I press and stuff the gowns, tie them to hangers and cover them in tissue and a breathable fabric bag for travel.
To the haters. This may seem silly to you but to the wedding couple it is ALL important. The bridal industry is Huge, and generates billions of dollars a year to the economy. Does this help make you feel better? Most bridal vendors do everything they can to satisfy their clients and the airlines try too. Finally, to the issue of the TSA, this is HARDLY the problem with TSA. Contact your officials and get them off their butts to reform this horrendous problem.

I would priority mail the wedding dress; worth all the $.

And who changes their name right after the wedding,, before going on honeymoon.? Unless there was a protracted time, and this is wise to know.

A thought to share - a friend of mine recently got married abroad and decided there were a ton of things she needed for her wedding that she didn't want to have to purchase when she arrived at her destination (like flip flops for guests). She decided it would be cheaper to just bring an extra suit case, spend the $50 to check it, and load it up with everything she needed. It worked out great. Certainly beats shipping items abroad (but doesn't help with the specific wedding dress quandary)! Happy Wedding Day for those brides to be!

Why not just wear a simple dress that you can pack up in a normal suitcase if you are having a destination wedding? Or give up the destination wedding nonsense altogether. Chances are you aren't a princess and by the time you are getting married, you should be way over the princess theme. The reality is that all too many wedding dresses are just cheaply made and totally overpriced schlock anyway and destinations force your guests to lay out a lot of money to stay in a place they don't want to go to in the first place. If you can't afford to pay for your guests' accommodations and food you shouldn't be having a destination wedding either.

Can't believe I'm even wasting breath on this but i just wanted to chime in that I will be flying with my wedding dress this summer bc my fiancé and I live 3000 miles away from our families and are traveling 'home' for our wedding so that they don't have to travel to us. I wish people wouldn't automatically assume this is an issue only for people having extravagant/destination weddings, but jumping to 'bridezilla' is easier. Thanks for the tips, NYT!

Why must people be so judgmental (and mean)? Why do any of you commenters care if a woman changes her name, carries her formal wedding dress on a plane or has a destination wedding? Be happy for others when they are happy. Live and let live.

And one wonders why lines are long at the TSA checkpoints.

Stop with the costly and inconvenient destination weddings and then you won't have to waste time worrying about such things!

First of all, keep your own name, problem solved.

Second, really? We need an article on this topic?

Carried my daughter in law's dress to Hawaii from Chicago. The airline personnel couldn't have been nicer or more helpful. Best advice we got was to have me put the dress on the belt at security and have my husband block all other bags until I'd taken it off so it would not get crushed. Again every one was very nice about it.

What an absurd fuss over a dress. If you have to have a garment that fancy, why not pack it carefully and ship it by Fedex ahead of time, rather than inconvenience staff or other passengers. Let alone waste money on a separate seat. I was once on a tube train traveling from London Airport into the enter of town when an American woman got on with a huge dress bag. On a cold, grey Monday morning NOBODY was impressed by her protestations that her fancy dress should take up a seat when human commuters wanted to sit down. What is it about brides that make them think that they are temporary deities whose chattels are sacred?

My wife wanted to change her last name. I told her that paperwork was not my specialty. She looked into the confusing regulations and decided that her last name was good enough. :)

Why not just get married near your home, friends, and family. Problems solved, and the ozone hole stays small a little longer.

Keep you name. You're not longer chattel that gets handed from one owner (dad) to the next (husband).

It's 2016 - legally keep your name and avoid the hassles that entail more than just travel. Socially, you can use his or hyphenate, if you must "belong" to someone in name as well as deed.

I bought a window seat for my daughter's wedding gowna nd got a boarding pass that read Wedding Gown Hoffman. I was in the row behind and saw the look on the face of the passenger sitting next to the Gown. I tapped him on the shoulder and assured him that his seat mate would be extremely quiet, wouldn't need to go to the restroom and wouldn't fall asleep on his shoulder. The only request in exchange was please not to spill any coffee or wine.
The gentleman turned to me at the end of the flight and assured me that he never had such a delightful travelling companion.

Just exactly how precious is the wedding gown if, as in the photo in the article, the bride is willing to let her gown soak up the salt water?

I flew from Detroit to LA in 2004 with my long formal gown for my son's wedding in a garment bag because I did not want to risk my luggage being lost. When I told the flight attendant what was inside the bag, she hung it inside the closet for me. If the closet had not been available, I would have stored the garment bag in an overhead. I was going to take the gown to be pressed at a dry cleaner's prior to the wedding either way. My husband's carry-on had my shoes for the wedding stored inside. Again, I was worried about lost luggage since we were flying in just two days before the wedding.

To legally change a name I thought you had to go to the social security office first which would be impossible if you were leaving for your honeymoon shortly after your wedding. Most women I know who changed their name just did it in the weeks and months following the wedding. There is no reason you have to immediately change your passport!

And one wears her wedding dress on the plane because it's inconvenient to change out before boarding and back in at the honeymoon destination? Or because EVERYONE has to know and be a part of the wedding?
I'm fine with and would make an accommodation for a bride who wants to have her dress with her in an overhead bin and would check my carry-on to assist. The rest is hubris.

Another reason to resist the (insanely sexist) custom of the bride changing her name.

One more good reason not to legally change your name after marriage. Much more hassle than it's worth. Socially people can call you what you want.

Many years ago, an American nephew married a young Japanese woman at his parents' home. It wasn't too many years after The Princess of Wales' bouffant dress, and so my niece-to-be had an imposing gown custom-made by a Japanese designer. It was so enormous that her father bought three seats in couch for the gown. Her family, needless to say, flew in another section of the aircraft.