'Don't wait until you want revenge' - why prenups are on the rise

"Don't wait until you want revenge" – that's the advice as prenuptial agreements become increasingly popular.

Celine Tsoi and Charles Mock, who met two years ago in Goleta, California, when Celine was 23 and Charles was 27, got engaged just eight months after their first encounter. Friends immediately inquired, "Oh, are you getting a prenup?"

Celine explains, "A lot of things could happen in a marriage and you want to discuss them when you still love each other rather than when things go bad and you want to take revenge."

It's no longer just the wealthy and famous opting for prenups; more people are recognizing the value of a legal agreement that outlines financial arrangements should a marriage end. Younger couples, in particular, are increasingly likely to sign one, even when significant wealth disparities aren't a factor.

Charles, a nurse, earns more than Celine, a PhD student, but Celine had slightly more savings, so their financial differences weren't vast. Nevertheless, they wanted to address crucial financial questions from the outset. Celine was especially touched that Charles wanted the prenup to stipulate that she would keep the house if they separated. She believes that simply having the conversation "can show you what the person you're going to marry is like."

There has been much speculation about whether Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce signed a prenup before their wedding this year.

While official figures are unavailable, in the US, where divorce courts have historically upheld prenups, nearly half of married millennials and over one in three Gen Z individuals report having a prenup. Overall, approximately one in five married couples in the US has a prenup.

In the UK, research suggests that around one in ten couples now have a prenup, following a legal shift in England towards greater recognition. Here too, younger couples are leading the trend, with surveys indicating that about one in three married individuals under 35 have signed one.

London lawyer Mark Gilmartin of JMW Solicitors notes a significant increase in demand for prenups over the past 18 months. He observes that the "billionaire-and-barmaid" stereotype is rapidly being replaced by demand from "start-up professionals," including entrepreneurs and influencers. "It's the attempts to protect the fruits of what's going to be, rather than what is," he states. Beyond aspiring TikTok stars, he also sees a notable trend of "every-day you and I" couples seeking prenups, often to safeguard inherited wealth.

Among them is Becca Gibson from West Sussex. In a few days, when she marries Dave Howells, their focus will be on their future, not the possibility of their marriage failing. However, they do have a contingency plan. Dave earns £130,000 from his finance job, more than three times what Becca earns from her eyelash extension business.

"I was very open to the idea [of a prenup]," says 33-year-old Becca, especially after her first marriage "didn't end very well." She acknowledges that a court-determined settlement might result in a better outcome for her, as she has three children from her first marriage, while Dave has only one from his. "It's not an advantage for me... but it's a fair situation," she asserts.

Both Dave and Becca believe a prenup offers a fairer way to manage their finances. Becca anticipates inheriting a substantial amount of property from her parents, which she wants to protect, ensuring that in the event of a split, each person leaves with what they started with. "It's nice knowing that if anything were to happen, I would just go back to how life was before," she says.

Dave, 45, admits it's unromantic but, given divorce statistics, he wants to be pragmatic. "A court of law could potentially say, hang on, this guy's earning a lot more than her, he needs to pay her. I built a home for myself. I've built a future for myself, including pensions. Park the emotional side of me loving both her and the kids, I'm no different now to when I met her, and yet she was independent. Why on earth would I have to pay something towards her life in the event of us splitting up?"

Lawyers indicate that a desire to avoid repeating the pain of a previous separation, or the messy splits witnessed in their parents' generations, is a primary motivation for many couples. Furthermore, prenups have become much more accessible with the advent of online platforms that make them faster and more affordable.

Dave initially pursued the traditional route with a local law firm, expecting to pay around £5,000. However, he later switched to Wenup, a semi-automated service that charged him a fixed fee of £1,600 instead.

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez are widely believed to have signed a prenup before their wedding last year.

Julia Rodgers, co-founder of the US prenup platform HelloPrenup, points out that couples are also marrying later in life. "You may have some [university] debt, maybe started a business or purchased a home. So you have a lot to protect and to lose by the age of 34," she explains.

What's known as "the Great Wealth Transfer" means some younger individuals are receiving significant assets to manage. Often, their parents are the driving force behind ring-fencing these inheritances. While prenups have historically been criticized for limiting women's rights, Rodgers argues they have evolved and now benefit women like her by allowing them to clarify their rights from the outset.

"We want to make sure we have the honest, open, transparent conversations about life goals, about finances, about roles and responsibilities in the home, so that we can have a long, happy marriage and not end up in that position that we saw our parents in," she says.

Celine reports that most of her friends view prenups favorably. Her online prenup only cost a few hundred dollars, but she believes that even if she had paid lawyers, it would have been a worthwhile "investment" in the marriage, less expensive but probably more important than the wedding itself. Best of all, she and Charles have had the "hard conversations" out of the way. "We haven't had a single argument about finances," she concludes.