What Happens to Your Will When You Get Married?

Under section 18 of the Wills Act 1837, marriage or civil partnership automatically revokes any will you made before the marriage took place, in almost all cases. This applies even if the will was perfectly valid and up to date the day before the wedding, and it applies regardless of whether the couple later divorces.

The practical effect is that a will written years earlier, perhaps naming an ex-partner, siblings, or friends as beneficiaries, is treated as if it never existed once you marry, unless the exception below applies. If you then die without making a new will, your estate is distributed under the intestacy rules rather than the wishes recorded in that older document.

There is a specific and narrow exception. If a will is expressly drafted to state that it is made in contemplation of a particular forthcoming marriage or civil partnership, and it is clear the will is intended to survive that marriage, it will not be automatically revoked. This wording needs to be included deliberately and precisely when the will is drafted, before the wedding takes place.

This approach is sometimes used by couples getting married who want their wills finalised in advance, or where there are reasons to want the will to remain effective without needing to be redone immediately after the ceremony. It needs to name the specific marriage, not just refer to marriage in general terms.

If you already have a will and you are planning to marry or have recently married, check whether your will was made in contemplation of that marriage. If it was not, and most existing wills were not, you should treat your current will as void once the marriage takes place and make a new one.

This is particularly important for people marrying later in life or for a second time, who may have an existing will that carefully provides for children from an earlier relationship. Marrying without updating the will can unintentionally leave those children unprotected if the will is automatically revoked and the estate falls under intestacy instead.

Remarriage after divorce or bereavement is a common trigger for this issue. If you have children from an earlier relationship and you remarry, your existing will is likely to be revoked by the marriage, so provisions you made for those children could disappear along with it unless you make a new will.

This is a good moment to think about how to balance providing for a new spouse with protecting an inheritance for children from a previous relationship, potentially using a trust structure, and to take advice if the situation is not straightforward.

The simplest and most reliable approach is to make a new will shortly after marrying, or before marrying with the specific contemplation-of-marriage wording included if you want protection to start immediately. Either way, do not assume an old will remains valid just because it has not been physically destroyed.

If your circumstances are simple, a new will can be made quickly and affordably online. If you are in a blended family or a second marriage with more complex wishes, get advice from a solicitor to make sure the arrangement actually achieves what you want.