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Time your marriage to minimize taxes. If both you and your beloved are employed, the "marriage penalty" may force you to pay more taxes as a married couple than you would if you were single, so marry the following January rather than December. However, if one spouse earns most of the money, you’ll enjoy a "marriage bonus," paying less tax as a married couple than you would as two single people, so a December wedding might be wise.
If you are paying for your own wedding, pay cash instead of going into debt. Have the courage to care more for the reality of your joint finances than the symbolic ritual of a lavish party. Consider having a small get-together to memorialize your love, and then throw a larger party when you can afford it.
If you receive monetary gifts on your wedding day, don’t spend them all. Set aside as much as you can to invest for shared dreams, such as a house, business, or children.
Review your investments. Determine if you need to change your investment allocations to meet your joint goals. Your partner’s assets can provide you with some investment flexibility that you could not achieve while single.
Be frank in discussing how you and your families handled money and how it went when you were growing up. It's important for both of you to understand where the other is coming from. You want to be frank enough to know what the actual financial situation was and what the family spending habits were - i.e. living paycheck to paycheck and spending rather than saving, or hoarding every dime and being exceptionally frugal whether the money was available or not
Discuss honestly how that history and past experience may influence your spending and saving decisions. Be sure to discuss whether or not you can both understand where the other is coming from and you need to see if either of you can recognize patterns of behavior
Discuss honestly your long and short-term goals. For example, we have a savings account devoted to vacations and we deposit something from every paycheck into that savings account whether it's 10 or 100 dollars.
Discuss where you each envision being twenty years from now - the frugal husband may be thinking of when you have children and saving enough to allow one of you to be at home with the kids for a few years, a new home purchase or other - the wife may be thinking of all the nice things she'd like to add to the house during a renovation.
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