I was waiting to pick up a copy of our marriage certificate at the Vital Statistics office last week when a couple barreled into line behind me. They were probably in their mid-40s, clad head to toe in black motorcycle leathers, and reeking of cigarette smoke. And they were giddy. In fact, the woman literally skipped into the room, singing “La la la!”

“We just got married,” she explained, when she finally took a break from singing and kissing her new husband. It was a short break. She went back to singing and jumping up and down after a few seconds.

“We get it,” one of the women behind the counter called out. “You’re happy.” We all laughed. It was a good day at Vital Statistics; everyone there seemed to be on wedding-related business, a nice change of pace from my other recent trips to the department, which I consistently managed to make at the same time as some exhausted-looking mother requested birth certificates for a crowd of cranky children weeping around her ankles.

As we waited to be helped, the couple told the story of their day, as much to themselves as to any of us. They’d gotten married in the woods, they were the happiest people on earth, and now they were going to get on their bike and ride off into the sunset, or at least down the Alcan, until the bike stopped running, and then they’d buy another bike and ride that one off into another sunset.

It was the beginning of what would turn into a long day for me; I’d decided to take the rip-off-the-Band-Aid approach to legally changing my last name to Nolan-Partnow. (I had to wait until the end of August to make it legal because I had plane tickets booked in my maiden name, and it turns out airlines don’t do name changes.) After Vital Statistics, I moved to the waiting room at the Social Security Administration, and then it was back to Midtown and the DMV to get a new driver’s license, title and registration. Although the process was fairly painless (except that I’d filled out all the wrong forms at the DMV and had to start all over at the window), it took the better part of the day, and when I got home I collapsed on the couch and didn’t get up again all evening. No skipping or singing for me.

Fun fact: The Social Security Administration doesn’t use hyphens! They just give you two last names. The Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles, on the other hand, will be more than happy to hyphenate your last name. Will this create confusion somewhere down the line? I hope not. I’m told airlines won’t hyphenate, either (probably because, if the Social Security Administration is any indication, the federal government doesn’t hyphenate), and I’m not sure what our bank will want to do. There was a moment at the Social Security office when I considered just switching to Partnow and dropping the Nolan altogether in the name of simplicity, but it didn’t really seem like the kind of decision one ought to make on a whim, so I stuck with the hyphenation plan, which was now the two-last-names plan, at least as far as the feds were concerned.

The whole experience, while pretty straightforward, makes me cringe when I think about how complicated our taxes are going to be next year. The name change process was beyond simple (all I needed was a certificate of marriage and apparently I could change my last name to whatever my little heart desired), but taxes require math and more confusing paperwork. That’s why I married an attorney with an economics degree. Hopefully we won’t need to hire an accountant.

The silver lining in all of this is that my new driver’s license photo is significantly better than the old one. Now I just have to do something about my atrocious passport photo (that name change, at least, will be free and require no time in any waiting rooms).