What name to put on cheque for new couple

purerandom

hi,
bit of a dumb query here, i have a wedding tomorrow.
know both of them very well and i never know whose name to put on the cheque. should i put
john smith
mary murphy
John and Mary Smith?

i would like to know what most people do in this instance.
thanks for any replies

hunnymonster

We've just been through this. had cheques made out to hunnymonster and zupylurk coming in dribs and drabs. We didn't have a joint account so I was happily lodging them to my account and then doing an online transfer to the savings account until after about 10 cheques the teller in the bank noticed there was a second name on them and refused to lodge the cheque so I had to drag himself to the bank to open a joint account so unless you know they have a joint account I wouldn't make it out to both. Definitely don't make it out to a woman's maiden name because even if they do have a joint account the name won't be changed yet (if ever).

I would just make it out to whichever one you are either related to or knew first.

messrs

had this for my cuz's wedding last year - made it out to their married name
as in john and mary smith

princess_calico

Can you just make it out to cash?

Toots

If you're writing a cheque you can just make it out to cash, if you're getting a draft, then it has to be made out to a person. My advice would be make it out to one or the other. There's no guarantee they'll have a joint account. If you're putting the bride's name down, use her maiden name, because not all women will be changing their surname.

How Strange

We had cheques made out to mr&mrs but unlike HM the bank never noticed and we lodged them no problem.

However, it's a good idea to make them out to one or the other just as a precaution just incase the bank is being particularly pedantic.

Clareman

We had a wide variety of checks, some made out to Clareman, some to Mrs. Clareman, others to cash, others to both of us, we just both went into bank together and put the checks and cash into our savings account (which is just in my name) the teller didn't ask anything and we didn't have any problems

seamus

We had a wide variety of names on the cheques as well. Most of them were written to John & Mary Smith, but some came to Mr and Mrs Smith, John Smith & Mary Murphy, etc.

In general, any cheque which had my name and surname on it, I lodged to my bank account without incident. A small number of cheques were made out directly to my wife in her maiden/real name by her relatives and she lodged them into her account.

John & Mary Smith was far and away the most popular one, followed closely by Mr & Mrs.

bamboozle

princess_calico wrote: »

Can you just make it out to cash?

+1
simple solution

Clareman

I just realised that the spell check changed cheques to checks for me, oops

I don't think there'll be any problem, only problem you may run into is if people cross the cheques, even at that most banks don't even look at cheques less that €500.

In the overall scheme of things it's the least of you're worries

hunnymonster

just me so.:cool:

Toots

Clareman wrote: »

I just realised that the spell check changed cheques to checks for me, oops

I don't think there'll be any problem, only problem you may run into is if people cross the cheques, even at that most banks don't even look at cheques less that €500.

In the overall scheme of things it's the least of you're worries

Depends on the branch, call me pedantic but if I'm running cheques in work, I'll be looking at every single one

westisbest

It obviously varies from bank to bank but for us we got some cheques made out to Mr and Mrs Westisbest. We tried to lodge them to one or other of our accounts and no luck. I phoned our bank (we had the same bank but no joint account) and they said even if one of us signed the back of the cheque they would not let us lodge it to either account, particularly as my accounts were in my maiden name.

From that point of view personally in the future if I was giving a cheque I'd address it to one of them only, whichever I was more closely linked to.

tinkerbell

Don't write it out to both of them unless you know that they have a joint account together. Just write it out to one of them.

hunnymonster

hunnymonster wrote: »

Definitely don't make it out to a woman's maiden name because even if they do have a joint account the name won't be changed yet (if ever).

Surely you mean definitely DO make it out to the woman's maiden name?

We had problems after our wedding with cheques because people made them out to Mr and Mrs Slave.
Our joint account is in my maiden name and his name. I'm not changing my name.

The bank would not allow us to lodge cheques to Mr and Mrs Slave into our joint account for this reason.
We had to take a copy of our marriage cert to the bank and they had to give me a double barrel name on the joint account.
A fair amount of hassle.

Clareman

I reckon the orders should be:
Make out to Cash
Make out to 1 person
Make out to wife's maiden name
Make out to Mr. and Mrs.
Leave the Pay section blank

How Strange

Clareman wrote: »

I reckon the orders should be:
Make out to Cash
Make out to 1 person
Make out to wife's maiden name
Make out to Mr. and Mrs.
Leave the Pay section blank

I wouldn't recommend this because if the cheques are lost or stolen they can be cashed/used very easily.

Clareman

How Strange wrote: »

I wouldn't recommend this because if the cheques are lost or stolen they can be cashed/used very easily.

Same can be said if the cheque is made out to cash, but I agree it's not very safe, hence I put it as the bottom option.

Joey the lips

Make it out to Mr and Mrs smith(obv there marriage name) and put a photo copy in the envelope with the phrase "Your first official document - Making it money rather than a bill" Guaranteed if they are like my other half they will still have the photo copy.

Clareman

I asked the bank for the cheques once they cleared and there wasn't any problem, I have them in an envelope somewhere, the orignal plan was to use them to send out the Thank You cards

The Circular Journey

Mr. and Mrs. John Smith

pwurple

Make it out to one or the other. We have had trouble lodging cheques made out to us both as well. You can put a note about why you did that in the card.

El_Dangeroso

Don't do mr. and mrs automatically. A lot of women do not change their names nowadays, and even if they have they are unlikely to have all the official name changing done right after the wedding.

iguana

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