The Wedding Checklist Item Nobody Talks About (But Every Couple Needs)
Estate planning belongs on every wedding checklist. New research shows most couples wait years too long. Here’s how to get it done before you say “I do.”
You’ve got the venue booked, the dress picked out, and a color palette your Pinterest board is very proud of. But there’s one item that almost never makes the wedding planning checklist, and it might be the most important one of all.
We’re talking about estate planning. And before you close this tab, hear us out, because a national survey from Trust & Will revealed some numbers that genuinely surprised us. The findings are eye-opening for anyone who’s engaged or recently married, especially if you’re the kind of person who likes to make smart, intentional decisions about your future.
Which, if you’re here, you definitely are.
Half of Engaged Couples Don’t Know the Basics
Trust & Will surveyed 750 Americans across three groups: single people, engaged couples, and married couples. One of the biggest findings? Half of all engaged respondents admitted they lack basic knowledge about what estate planning even includes.
That means going into one of the biggest legal and financial commitments of your life, 50% of engaged couples aren’t sure what a will does, or what a trust is, or what happens to their stuff (and their partner) if something goes wrong.
That’s not a judgment. That’s just a gap that’s worth closing before you walk down the aisle.
Here’s a quick primer. An estate plan typically includes:
A will, which spells out how you want your assets distributed after you die and who you want to care for any children.
A trust, which can help your loved ones skip the expensive and time-consuming court process called probate.
A healthcare directive (also called a living will or advance directive), which documents your medical wishes in case you can’t speak for yourself.
An executor or trustee, the person you choose to carry out all of the above.
Together, these documents are how you legally protect your partner and make sure your wishes are honored, no matter what life throws at you.
Marriage Changes Your Legal Reality
Getting married isn’t just a celebration. It’s a legal merger. From the moment you say “I do,” you and your spouse are financially and legally intertwined in ways most couples don’t fully think through until something goes wrong.
Without the right documents in place, your spouse might not have the legal authority to access your bank accounts, make medical decisions on your behalf, or even know what your wishes are. That’s a scary situation to leave the person you love in.
The Trust & Will survey found that married individuals are nearly four times more likely to have a will than engaged couples (44% vs. 12%). So clearly, marriage does motivate action. But nearly half of all married Americans still have no estate plan at all. And among those who eventually do create one, 25% waited more than ten years after their wedding to get started.
Ten years is a long time to be unprotected.
The Stats That Should Be on Every “What to Do After the Wedding” List
Here are a few numbers from the survey that really stuck with us:
Only 15% of engaged couples have a healthcare directive. That means if something medical happened tomorrow, most engaged couples have no documented record of what they’d want done.
37% of engaged respondents haven’t even thought about who would handle their estate. That’s the executor role, the person who steps in to manage everything, and most people haven’t given it a single thought.
9% of engaged couples don’t know what a healthcare directive is at all.
And perhaps most striking: among married couples who did eventually create an estate plan, only 10% did so within the first four years of marriage. The rest waited much longer, or haven’t done it yet.
The window right around your engagement and wedding might be the single best time to take care of this. You’re already in “building a life together” mode. You’re thinking about your future, your finances, your family. Tacking on an afternoon to get your estate plan squared away just makes sense.
Women: This One Is Especially for You
The gender breakdown in this survey is something we really want to highlight.
Men in the survey were three times more likely to have a trust than women. Men were also significantly more likely to have documented an executor or trustee (36% of men vs. 23% of women). And women were 38% more likely to feel financially insecure than men.
Women were also more than twice as likely to not know what a healthcare directive is.
This matters for two reasons. First, if you’re the partner who has taken a backseat on the financial planning conversations, now is an excellent time to step in. Your name is going on that marriage certificate too. Your future deserves to be protected just as much as your partner’s.
Second, if you’re in a couple where one partner handles more of the financial logistics, make sure both of you understand what’s in place and why. Estate planning is a two-person conversation, full stop.
The Engaged Couple’s Paradox (And Why It’s Actually Good News)
Here’s the thing that gave us a little hope in this data. Engaged couples show the lowest estate planning adoption of any group in the survey, but the highest future intent.
A full 49% of engaged respondents said they plan to create an estate plan within the next one to five years. And 38% said getting married was the motivation that finally got them thinking about it.
So the desire is there. The awareness is growing. The gap is really just between “thinking about it” and “actually doing it.”
And that gap has never been easier to close. Services like Trust & Will have made the process genuinely accessible. We’re talking attorney-reviewed documents, built to meet your state’s specific laws, that you can complete online in a matter of hours, for a fraction of what you’d pay a traditional attorney.
This is not your grandmother’s estate planning. You don’t have to schedule three appointments with a lawyer or spend a Saturday buried in confusing paperwork. You can do this together at home, probably in the same amount of time it takes to watch a movie.
What the Research Says About Peace of Mind
We want to end on something that really resonated with us in this data.
When respondents were asked why they created or wanted to create an estate plan, the number one answer wasn’t “to protect my assets.” It wasn’t “to avoid taxes.” It wasn’t even “because my financial advisor told me to.”
It was peace of mind. 52% of all respondents cited it as their top reason.
That tells us something beautiful. Estate planning, at its core, is an act of love. It’s saying to your partner: I’ve thought about the hard things so you don’t have to face them alone. I’ve taken care of it. You’re protected.
That kind of intentional, forward-thinking love is exactly what a great marriage is built on.
And honestly? It’s exactly the kind of smart, savvy decision-making we love to see from our B$B community.
Your Action Plan: Making It Happen Before (or Right After) the Wedding
Not sure where to start? Here’s a simple approach.
Have the conversation first. Before you look at any platform or attorney, sit down with your partner and talk through the basics. If something happened to you tomorrow, who should make decisions? Who do you trust to handle your estate? If you have or plan to have kids, who would raise them?
Get educated together. Trust & Will’s website has a ton of free, plain-English resources that explain every piece of an estate plan without the legal jargon. Start there.
Use an accessible platform. Trust & Will lets you create legally valid, attorney-approved estate planning documents online, often for significantly less than a traditional attorney would charge. That is very much in the B$B spirit.
Put it on the post-wedding checklist. Right after the wedding, you’ll be updating your name on your ID, combining bank accounts, and sending thank-you notes. Add “finalize estate plan and update beneficiaries” to that list. It matters just as much.
Review it when life changes. Having a baby, buying a home, starting a business, or coming into an inheritance are all good reasons to revisit and update your plan.
Getting married is the start of your forever. Take an afternoon to protect it.
To read the full Trust & Will research, visit trustandwill.com.
Statistics in this article are drawn from a 2025 national survey of 750 Americans conducted by Trust & Will. This article is for informational purposes only and is not legal or financial advice. Please consult a qualified professional for guidance specific to your situation.
