Marriage comes with plenty of conversations: Where will we live? How will we manage money? Whose family gets Thanksgiving this year?
Estate planning may not make the early list, but it deserves a place there. Getting married creates certain legal rights in Virginia. It doesn’t automatically create a complete plan for what happens if one spouse becomes incapacitated or dies.
The best estate planning for married couples begins with conversation because you’re building a life together, so it makes sense to decide together how that life should be protected.
Here are five decisions worth making as a team:
Decision one: Decide what should happen to your property
Many newly married couples assume everything will simply go to the surviving spouse. It can be true in some situations, but not all of them.
Virginia intestacy law generally gives an estate to the surviving spouse when someone dies without a valid will, but if the person who died has children who aren’t also children of the surviving spouse, the outcome changes. In that situation, Virginia law generally provides one-third to the surviving spouse and two-thirds to the deceased spouse’s children or their descendants.
Blended families need especially clear instructions
If either spouse has children from a prior relationship, talk openly about what you want:
– Should everything go to the surviving spouse first?
– Should children receive something immediately?
– Should assets remain available for the surviving spouse while preserving an inheritance for children later?
There’s no universal right answer, only the answer that reflects your family.
Decision two: Choose who can act during incapacity
Estate planning isn’t only about death.
Imagine one spouse is seriously injured and temporarily unable to manage finances or communicate medical decisions.
Being married doesn’t automatically give a spouse unlimited authority over every financial account or legal matter. A power of attorney can give someone you trust authority to handle financial responsibilities on your behalf.
Talk about medical decisions too
Virginia law allows an adult to create an advance medical directive and appoint an agent to make health care decisions if the person later can’t make an informed decision. For many couples, the spouse is the natural choice, but naming that person clearly matters.
It also helps to name a backup and talk about your wishes before anyone has to make a difficult decision under pressure.
Decision three: Review beneficiaries and ownership together
A wedding doesn’t automatically clean up every old financial form, as you may still have a parent, sibling, or former partner named on an old life insurance policy or retirement account.
Review those forms together. Check life insurance, retirement plans, and payable-on-death accounts, then look at how property is titled.
Make sure the pieces tell the same story
Your will may say one thing while a beneficiary form sends an asset somewhere else. That’s why coordination between estate planning documents, beneficiary designations, property ownership, and trusts is essential.
A plan works best when all of those pieces support the same intention.
Decision four: Make a plan for children
If you already have children, or hope to, this conversation matters deeply: Who would care for minor children if neither parent could, and who would manage the money you leave for them?
Those don’t have to be the same person. One relative may be the person you trust to provide a loving home, and another may be better suited to managing investments, records, and distributions.
A thoughtful estate plan can give both people clear roles instead of leaving the family to sort it out during a crisis.
Decision five: Decide how you want the plan to work later
Finally, talk about what kind of experience you want your loved ones to have:
– Are you comfortable with assets going through probate?
– Does privacy matter?
– Do you want assets managed in trust for children?
– Do you own property that may make administration more complicated?
These questions help determine whether a will-based plan or trust-based plan makes more sense for your family.
The right answer may also change over time. Marriage may be followed by children, a new home, a business, aging parents, or changing finances. Simply, keep estate planning connected to those life changes rather than treating documents as something signed once and forgotten.
Estate planning after marriage isn’t about expecting something bad to happen
It’s about making decisions together while life is calm.
Decide who should receive property, choose who can act if one of you can’t, review beneficiaries and ownership, and protect your children. Then choose a planning structure that makes those intentions easier for your family to carry out.
At Mathews Law, PLLC, we help Virginia couples talk through these decisions in plain language and build plans around the lives they’re actually creating together. If marriage has changed your family but your estate plan hasn’t caught up, schedule a consultation with Mathews Law. We can help turn the promises you’ve made to each other into practical protection for the years ahead.