Weddingbee boards

1.  Once you're legally married in any state, your marriage will be recognized in any other state.  So if you have a civil marriage in VA you will be considered legally married at that point, and CT would also consider you to be legally married.  It wouldn't be any different than if you were having the "real wedding" in VA after getting civilly married beforehand.  I would confirm everything with your officiant in CT to make sure there's nothing else that needs to be done--for example maybe you need a copy of your VA marriage certificate for the CT officiant?  But you wouldn't need to get married again in CT for your marriage to be valid there.

2.  You can change your name anytime after you get married.  It probably varies slightly by state, but in my state once you have your marriage certificate you can change your name for free by notifiying social security and everyone else--but you need your marriage certificate.  In your case, if there is no substantial difference in the laws of VA or CT, you'll be able to change your name after your civil ceremony in VA.  You don't have to, though--if you'd rather wait until your "real wedding" in CT, you can do that too.  Are you moving to CT?  I assume that you'd be able to go through all the procedural hoops to get your name changed in any state, as long as you had a valid marriage license from any state, but I'm not sure--i.e. I don't know whether you would have to go through the name changing process in VA or if you would be able to do it in CT.  I have a strong suspicion that you would be able to do it in CT with a VA marriage license, but you should double check that.  You can ask the clerk at the county clerk's office or courthouse where you get your marriage license, you can also go to whoever issues marriage licenses and marriage certificates in CT (once again, most likely the county clerk) or you can also ask your officiant, who would probably know what to do.

Sorry, that was a lot of info--hope it's not too confusing.  Good luck.