My guy and I decided that we're both going to change our last names. We're going to change the spelling and smoosh his hypenated last names together to make a new last name. It's what we really both want.
We went to the Hennepin County government center today to get our marriage license. I filled out all the paperwork ahead of time with our new last name and everything.
Once we get up to the counter, the guy starts giving my dude crap about how his name is hypenated on the form, but not on his drivers license. That's about when I knew we were going to have problems. The guy at the counter then prints our application, looks at our new last name and just says "no." Aparently, Hennepin County won't let you change your last name to something other than the husbands last name, unless you want to hypenate it. He says other counties aren't as strict with name changes, but he won't tell us which ones because he's not allowed to.
So, here's my question. For those of you out there who have made up a new last name, where did you go to get your licsense? What counties can I go to so that I can make our new last name happen? I could use all the advice you've got!