I Now Pronounce Your New Instagram Handle

At Jasmine Polansky’s Hannah Montana-themed bachelorette party earlier this year, seven women in colorful wigs conferred for an important vote. It was time to decide the bride-to-be’s new Instagram handle.

For Polanksy, 24, a retail manager from Charlotte, North Carolina, the choice to adopt a different last name was easy. She had always felt that her maiden name, Smith, was pretty generic, and was happy to take on her husband’s more unique surname when they got married in July. Her previous Instagram handle, created as a freshman in high school, was @jasminesmithhhh, with four Hs to differentiate herself from the other Jasmine Smiths on the platform. The bridesmaids raised several points: Should there be an underscore between first and last, to match her husband’s? All one word? End in four Ys as an ode to her previous username?

Once all seven votes were in, Jasmine immediately created a new account to reserve the handle @jasminepolansky — which seemed like a smart move until she tried to switch over on her wedding night. The app wouldn’t let her; she had to wait two weeks to make sure “the previous user” (herself) didn’t want the username back.

In the meantime, Jasmine held off on sharing her wedding photos until she could do so under her new handle. “I wanted to be like, ‘Yep, it's cemented and final,’” she says. “Changing my name, that's the next phase of my life.”

For many women, the prospect of changing, keeping, hyphenating, or otherwise altering their last name when they get married can be complicated. There are a litany of factors to consider, from personal philosophies around feminism to families’ feelings about long-held traditions — not to mention the extensive paperwork required to make the change official. But in today’s social media-driven world, this decision doesn’t only play out on your driver’s license, passport, and bills. There’s also your Instagram handle — something brides are reserving before their weddings, switching soon after saying “I do,” or deliberately leaving untouched.

Allow Me To Reintroduce Myself

For newlyweds making a less traditional name change, a new Instagram handle helps spread the word. When Brooklyn Powers, a 25-year-old plastics engineer in New Hampshire, got married in February, she and her husband Kyle mutually adopted the surname of his grandfather, with whom he was especially close. While neither of them are particularly active on social media — Brooklyn hasn’t posted since the wedding, and Kyle’s online presence is, she says, “largely meme-based” — both changed their Instagram handles in the week following the ceremony.

The couple had told their families they would be switching to Powers months earlier; updating their usernames served as a more widespread announcement.

“One of my aunts commented, ‘I didn't know you guys chose that last name!’ even though she’d attended the wedding,” Brooklyn says. “So I feel like it was a good way to let people know.”

But What About The Personal Brand?

Some people were surprised when Paige Paul changed her name after marrying tennis player Tommy Paul last month. The 28-year-old influencer formerly known as Paige Lorenze had spent years building an Instagram following of 1.3 million (as well as the apparel brand Dairy Boy and the home goods brand American Charm).

But as she told Amanda Hirsch on the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast, it was “never a question” — she felt it was an honor to take her husband’s surname, and hopes to share it with their future children. Thanks to her business relationship with Instagram, she arranged for an employee to switch her username for her hours before she walked down the aisle.

For other brides, the decision isn’t so straightforward. When Katie Garrity, 37, a writer and editor in Chicago, got married 12 years ago, she worried that changing her name would make it difficult for readers to find her past work. She ultimately chose to keep it, though she uses her husband’s last name on occasion, like when she introduces herself at her daughter’s school.

“Since I'm professionally online, it just makes sense to keep my name the same for consistency's sake,” she says.

Beyond that, though, remaining a Garrity makes her feel like herself. “I made that account when Instagram was born,” she says. “Way before I even met my husband.”