Getting Married? Why you should review your Will before you say “I Do”

Most people planning a wedding are thinking about venues, guest lists and readings, not about a document they signed years earlier. Yet under the current law, getting married can cancel any Will you have already made, in full, without you being told. With the Government currently consulting on separate changes to how couples can marry, it is a good moment to explain what marriage actually does to your existing Will, and what you can do about it. 

It is easy to see how people get caught out. Many couples make a Will years before they marry, perhaps after buying a home together, having children, or starting a business, and quite reasonably assume that Will still protects the people they care about once they are married. Under the current law, it usually will not. This is not a rare technicality that only affects a handful of people. It catches a great many couples every year, simply because nobody told them. 

What marriage currently does to your Will 

Under the current law, marrying or entering a civil partnership automatically revokes any Will you made beforehand, unless that Will was made specifically in contemplation of that particular marriage, naming the person you intended to marry and stating clearly that the Will was meant to survive the wedding. This rule comes from the Wills Act 1837 and has remained largely unchanged since then. It makes no difference how carefully the Will was drafted, how recently it was updated, or how clearly it set out your wishes. Once the marriage takes place, the document simply stops having legal effect. 

In practice, this means that a Will written to protect children from an earlier relationship, to provide for a business partner, or to make sure a vulnerable relative is looked after, can stop working on the day of a wedding without anyone realising it. If no new Will is made afterwards, the estate is instead distributed under the intestacy rules, a fixed legal formula that takes no account of what the person concerned would actually have wanted. Under those rules, a surviving spouse typically receives the deceased’s personal belongings, a fixed sum currently set at £322,000, and a share of whatever remains, with the rest divided among any children. Anyone who was not married to the deceased, including a long term partner who never married them, receives nothing at all. 

This can be a particular concern for people remarrying. A Will made for a first marriage, or written to provide for children from an earlier relationship, offers no protection at all once a new marriage takes place, however carefully it was drafted at the time. The same applies to property, business interests and life insurance arrangements that were planned around an earlier Will. Once that Will is revoked, those plans can unravel with it unless a new Will is put in place to replace them. 

A case that shows what can go wrong 

The consequences of this rule became widely known through the case of Joan Blass, an elderly woman living with dementia who married a much younger man without her family’s knowledge. She had already made a Will setting out clearly who she wanted to inherit her estate. The marriage automatically revoked it, and she died a short time later without having made another. Her estate passed under the intestacy rules instead of according to her original wishes, and her new husband inherited it. The long campaign led by her daughter since has helped raise awareness of what is sometimes called predatory marriage, where someone marries a vulnerable person in order to inherit from them. 

Predatory marriage is an extreme example, but the underlying rule is the same one that disrupts far more ordinary family situations every year, usually without any wrongdoing involved at all. Most cases involve nothing more than a couple marrying, assuming their existing Wills are still valid, and not getting around to reviewing them until it is too late. 

Two different pieces of work, only one on the table 

This is where the Government’s wedding law consultation comes in, and where it is easy to get the wrong idea. In July 2026 the Government launched Tying the Knot, a consultation on reforming weddings law in England and Wales, covering where ceremonies can take place, who can conduct them, and how the regulatory system around weddings works. It is a significant piece of modernisation, but it is only a consultation. Nothing in it has yet been decided, and it says nothing at all about what marriage does to a Will. 

The proposal that would actually change that comes from a different piece of work entirely. The Law Commission has recommended that marriage should stop automatically revoking a Will, a sensible change that many in the legal profession support. But it remains only a recommendation. The Government has not said whether or when it will act on it, so for now the current law continues to apply in full. Anyone assuming the wedding law consultation covers this too, or waiting for the rules to change before reviewing their own Will, could be waiting a considerable time. 

What you can do 

If you are planning to marry, speak to a solicitor about your Will in good time, rather than leaving it until after the wedding. A Will can be drafted specifically in contemplation of your marriage, naming your future spouse and confirming that it is intended to survive the wedding, so your wishes are not lost on the day itself. 

If you have already married, check whether the Will you are relying on was made before your wedding. A Will made before the wedding has very likely been revoked, even if you were never told this at the time and have been carrying on as though it still applies. Treat this as a priority if you have remarried, if you have children from an earlier relationship, if you own a business or a share in one, or if you are providing for a relative who depends on you. 

A short conversation with a solicitor is usually all it takes to put this right. If you are getting married, remarrying, or simply unsure whether your existing Will still stands, Coodes’ private client team can help you check where you stand, whatever stage of the journey you are at. 

Get in touch: Contact the Private Client team on 0800 328 3282