Hello, my name is Nicole. Nicole Q-Schmitz.
Yes that’s right, my last name is changed! No longer the long last name of Quenneville, my new surname is much shorter and completely custom. I’m not sure when I decided to change my name to something custom, it was definitely when we were still engaged. For those of you who are following the Home Renovation blog, you might notice that Q-Schmitz is the URL. I actually purchased the domain over a year ago, and that’s where we had our wedding RSVP site held (yes, I’m so thrifty). At the time, the pre-Husband didn’t want to use a link on my other sites (ex: NicolesPortfolioSite.com/wedding), so I came up with Q-Schmitz then and thought I could use the site in the future. And it’s definitely better than a super specific URL like KennAndNicolesWeddingRSVP.com that you only use for that one event.
So, why Q-Schmitz for my last name? Well, a variety of factors influenced that decision, and I’ve decide to write them in a list (in no particular order) for ease of legibility.
- There’s already a famous Nicole Schmitz out there. Some sort of gorgeous beauty queen who is taking up all of the Google Search first page results.
- My NCTMQ social accounts and blog (and license plate)! If I took my husband’s last name, my initials would be different
- I didn’t want to keep my birth last name, it’s too long for me to sign my name all the time
- I definitely didn’t want a full hyphenated name for that reason as well (Quenneville-Schmitz is WAY too long)
- Since my cousin got married, there have been two Nicole Quenneville’s in my family, and there’s lots of Nicole Quennevilles when you search Google too (but I liked to admit that I was taking up over half of the first page results don’t you know!)
In the end, I wanted a name that would be completely unique… just like me! So, how did I change my name to include only one letter then a hyphen? Well that was a process… let me tell you!
Basically, when I went to “assume” my name at Service Ontario, they couldn’t just do it then and there (because I was choosing something custom). I was definitely distraught! But of course, I had done a bunch of research ahead of time and knew that I might not be able to just “assume” this custom name. So, in order to change my name, I had to do it legally (not that the other way is illegal of course, it’s just called a “legal name change”).
Anyways, I was married in June, and after filling out the 20-something page application, I finally submitted it in November (yes, it took months for me to get it in the mail). And now, in the second week of February, I finally heard back from them, and everything was approved! Trust me, I was super worried the whole time thinking that it might not go through… and I would have been devastated!
Nevertheless, everything is now correct in my world (in regards to my name of course)! So I now must begin the process of changing all my documents, ie driver’s license, credit cards, etc… which will take another long while too. I think I switched all my online account names right away, but for some reason Google took a few days to process because they say people don’t change their names, so I must be crazy… or something like that.
So, what’s in store for Nicole Q-Schmitz? Well, world domination of course!