Prenups Aren't Just for the Wealthy: A Judgment-Free Guide
Bring up prenuptial agreements at a dinner party and watch the room shift. For a lot of people, the word still conjures images of celebrities protecting mansions and yachts, or worse, a lack of trust in the relationship. But that reputation doesn't match reality. Prenups have quietly become a normal, practical planning tool for couples at every income level — and understanding what one actually does might change how you think about them.
What a prenup actually is
At its core, a prenuptial agreement is a legal document that spells out how you and your partner will handle financial matters during the marriage and, if it ever comes to it, in the event of divorce or death. It's not a prediction that your marriage will fail. It's a plan for clarity, the same way a will is a plan for clarity and not a prediction of when you'll pass away.
A prenup can address things like:
How property and assets acquired before the marriage will be treated
How debt brought into the marriage will be handled
What happens to a business one partner owns or is building
How assets acquired during the marriage will be divided if the marriage ends
Provisions around inheritance or family assets
Spousal support expectations
Why "just for the wealthy" is outdated
The assumption that prenups are only for people with significant assets misses a lot of situations where they add real value:
You're bringing debt into the marriage. Just as much as protecting assets, a prenup can protect a spouse from becoming responsible for the other's premarital debt — student loans, credit cards, or otherwise.
One of you owns a business, or plans to start one. Even a small business has value, and a prenup can clarify how that value is treated if the marriage ends, protecting both the business and the relationship.
You've been married before. If you have children from a previous relationship, a prenup can help ensure certain assets are protected for them, regardless of what happens in the current marriage.
You're inheriting family property or assets. A prenup can help keep inherited property separate, which matters for a lot of middle-class families with a home, land, or savings passed down through generations.
You want to enter marriage with full financial transparency. The process of creating a prenup requires both partners to disclose their full financial picture. For couples about to get married, that conversation alone is worth having, regardless of what the final document says.
There are many other ways that a prenup can add more value as well, and they are spelled out in financial planner Kaylin Dillon’s book Prenup Partnership, where she covers everything you need to know when getting married and why you should consider a prenup.
The conversation is often harder than the document
If there's a real obstacle to prenups, it's rarely the legal process — it's the conversation. Bringing up a prenup can feel like you're questioning the relationship, and it's a topic that needs to be approached with care.
A few things that tend to help:
Bring it up early, well before the wedding is close enough that time pressure adds stress to the conversation.
Frame it as a planning tool, not a hedge. The goal is clarity and protection for both partners, not an assumption about the marriage's outcome.
Carefully consider your legal representation. Find attorneys that genuinely understand your goals. This is not about one partner crafting a document that they unilaterally present to the other partner - it’s about the two of you being intentional about your vision for the marriage.
Treat it as one part of a broader financial conversation, alongside topics like debt, spending habits, and shared goals — not an isolated, tense negotiation.
When it might not be necessary
To be fair, a prenup isn't automatically the right call for every couple. If you're both entering the marriage with similar financial pictures, no significant premarital assets, no business interests, and no children from previous relationships, you may decide to just have the conversations themselves and decide the added legal cost and process of the actual prenup document isn't worth it for your situation — and that's a reasonable conclusion too.
The point isn't that everyone needs one. It's that the decision shouldn't be made based on an outdated assumption about who prenups are "for."
The bottom line
A prenup is a legal and financial planning tool, not a referendum on how much you trust each other. Whether or not it's the right choice depends on your specific financial picture — not your net worth, your job title, or what you've seen in the movies.
If you're not sure whether a prenup makes sense for you and your partner, check out Prenup Partnership by Kaylin Dillon of Kaylin Dillon Financial Planning, where she covers everything you should consider before making a prenup decision one way or another. For more personalized advice, you can also set up an intro call with Sarah here.