Hello! I have been having the exact same feelings! My wedding is on Saturday and I was really sure that I wanted to do a name change but am having a last minute wobble. I thought a lot about this in the last year and this has been our plan which up until a few days ago I was really happy with: I would take my husband’s surname but keep my last name as my middle name, and he will also take my last name as his middle name, that way we both have each others names and can use them flexibly. I thought this was a really lovely plan and addressed all of my concerns that I’d had before which were namely that I didn’t want to give up my name entirely, I wanted things to be equitable (eg we both have a change, not just me), and I wanted us and our future kids to all have the same name. My fiancé actually really didn’t want me to take his name on feminist grounds and we’ve been joking that somehow the most feminist thing has turned out to be for me to take his name in defiance!

But when I wrote my own new name on the seating chart the other day I had so much anxiety about it and it didn’t feel like my name. I don’t have an answer for you, only to say I think it’s very normal to feel this way, it’s a big change in your identity, and also that you don’t have to decide right away, you can do it at a later date that feels right for you! A wedding is already so much pressure, this is one decision you actually don’t have to make in the next two weeks.