Weddings are, among other things, a masterclass in decision-making under deadline. Flowers, seating plans, whether Auntie Jean can really sit next to Uncle Ray. Underneath all of it, a decision is taking place: two separate financial lives are about to become one.

This is a conversation very few couples have over candlelight, and who can blame them. Who keeps which accounts? Does a joint mortgage or a joint holiday fund come first? What happens to pensions and wills once circumstances change? Wills, incidentally, hold a small surprise: in England and Wales, getting married revokes an existing will unless it was written with the marriage in mind. The law takes “till death us do part” rather literally. None of it is complicated in isolation. Together, it amounts to a full re-plan.

We were reminded of this recently when one of our own financial planners, Matt Burt, got married. It turns out that spending your working week on other people’s financial plans buys no exemption from the admin: “I do” is a starting gun, and it fires for planners too.

There is also a tendency to treat the wedding itself as the finish line, which, of course, it isn’t. The average cost of a UK wedding now comfortably runs into five figures, which means many couples begin married life with a substantial joint purchase already behind them, before the house, the children, the long-term saving, or the business of protecting one another has even come up.

None of this is meant to take the shine off anything. Marriage is one of the few moments where it makes complete sense to sit down and ask, out loud, what “the rest of our lives” looks like financially. Couples combine addresses as a matter of course; combining financial plans deserves at least the same ceremony.

So if a wedding is on the horizon for you or your family this year, as guest, parent, or the one walking down the aisle, give the planning conversation the attention the seating plan gets. It pays off for considerably longer. And your financial planner is far easier to seat than Auntie Jean.