Your wedding is close and the prenup is not signed yet

The date that matters is the day you receive the final version

The day the final version reaches you is day nought. Seven full calendar days then have to pass, and the earliest day to sign is the day after that. The signing has to come before the wedding.

A draft does not start the count, and neither does a version whose substance is changed afterwards. A correction that changes nothing about the bargain, such as a misspelled name, is a different thing.

The seven-day rule page sets out how the days are counted, including the separate period that applies where a party signs without a lawyer.

On an agreement signed on or after 1 January 2020, at least seven calendar days must pass between the day a party is first given the final agreement and the day that party signs it, whether or not that party has a lawyer. Fam. Code, § 1615, subd. (c)(2)(B)

What to do this week

When the wedding is two or three weeks away, the order of steps matters more than speed.

• Send the draft for review now. Do not wait for the final version.
• Ask, in writing, for the date the final version will be given to you.
• Prepare your own list of property, debts and income now, if the agreement calls for one.
• Write down the date you receive each version.
• Do not sign anything until your own lawyer has confirmed the earliest date you should sign.

If you are being pressed to sign quickly

If you are pressed to sign before the waiting period has passed, say so, in writing, and do not sign until it has.

A premarital agreement is not enforceable against a party who did not sign it voluntarily, and the statute sets out what a court must find before it treats a signature as voluntary. Fam. Code, § 1615, subds. (a)(1), (c)

If the final version cannot arrive in time

Then the choices are to move the wedding date, to marry without an agreement, or to marry first and make an agreement afterwards.

An agreement made after the wedding is a different kind of agreement, with its own rules. It is not the same prenup signed late.

An agreement made after the wedding is not a premarital agreement, and the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act does not govern it. Fam. Code, § 1600 et seq.; Fam. Code, § 1610, subd. (a)

Where the $395 review fits in

Upload the draft as soon as you have it, marked as a draft, with the date you received it. The written review is done on the draft, so that when the final version arrives it is checked against advice you already have rather than read for the first time.

When the final version arrives, upload it marked as final, with the date you received it. You are then told the earliest date you should sign.