For many couples, the engagement period is one of the most logistically demanding of their lives, and almost all of that demand is oriented toward a single day.

Weddings matter. The ritual of public commitment, witnessed by the people you love, matters. But I have sat with enough couples to feel strongly about what tends to get left out. Couples who planned beautiful weddings and then found themselves, five or ten years later, in my office trying to untangle something that had been there from the beginning.