Everything’s in place. You’ve set the date, ordered the cake and picked out the tux and the dress.

But before you say, “I do,” make sure you seal the deal on how the financial part of your marriage will work. That’s because money how it is spent and who controls it is one of those issues that can make or break a marriage, experts say.

“Money has a profound, symbolic meaning in a marriage, so you can’t not talk about it,” said Dr. Pamela York Klainer, an executive coach and workplace consultant in Rochester, N.Y., who works with individuals and companies on money issues. “It’s incredibly dangerous not to talk about it.”

It’s not the amount of money but the management of it that can cause friction between two people.

“It’s who gets to control what and who owns what,” said Maggie Tolbert, a certified financial planner and certified divorce planner with Financial Network in Dallas. “We should make decisions together on how to spend it.”

But it doesn’t always work out that way, experts say.

“I see a lot of this attitude that, ‘I earned this, therefore, it’s mine, and I get to control it,”‘ Tolbert said. “There’s resentment on the part of the partner who doesn’t have control.”

Provider and organizer

Money is a power source and the most obvious place where the power of money gets negotiated on a daily basis is in sorting out the so-called “provider” and “organizer” roles, Klainer said.

“Providers are people who bring in money,” said Klainer, author of “How Much Is Enough?” “Organizers do everything else.” Providers almost always “get paid much, much more than organizers,” she said.

“In almost any system work or family providers get more recognition, more status, have more influence over outcomes, have a wider range of options,” Klainer said. “Organizers almost always get paid less, not because their work is unimportant but because it’s much harder to figure out how to value it.”

And couples must decide how the provider/organizer roles will work in their marriage, she said.

“If you have two very ambitious people, that’s a ‘provider-provider,”‘ Klainer said. “They will go far in their careers, but they have very little time for intimacy.”

You could have the traditional roles, with the husband as the breadwinner and the wife as the stay-at-home spouse and mother. “The downside is that the stay-at-home spouse takes a tremendous financial risk,” Klainer said. Although a couple may go into a marriage vowing that it will be a partnership, it’s never that absolute, she said.

“A partnership is never 50-50 in the first place,” she said. “The first thing they have to talk about is the power of money and how they will apportion that.”

Are you going to keep separate checking accounts and have one joint account for common expenses, or join all your finances?

“One of the mistakes is merging the money right away,” said Olivia Mellan, a Washington psychotherapist who’s written several books on the psychology of money. “It’s much better to keep everything separate until they know whom they’re dealing with.”

Discuss debt

At the same time, “divulge everything,” Tolbert said.

“People feel very betrayed when they go into a marriage and (find that) somebody has accumulated $22,000 in consumer debt,” Klainer said.

The debt you incurred prior to marriage is still your own debt, even after marriage, unless you convert that account into a joint account, said Rod Griffin, manager of consumer education at Experian, one of the three major credit bureaus.

There’s no such thing as a joint credit report, but your spouse’s individual credit history can turn around and bite you.

“When you apply for a mortgage, the mortgage lender will look at both your credit history and your spouse’s credit history,” Griffin said. “If your spouse has a negative credit history, that can affect your ability as a couple to obtain that mortgage.”

Couples need to work out ground rules when it comes to incurring debt, Klainer said.

“What kind of debt do we consider legitimate?” she said. “A mortgage, a car loan, most people would consider legitimate. What kind of debt is out of bounds?”

Talking about debt is part of finding out your prospective partner’s “money history” and his or her values surrounding money, experts say.

“The expectations around money topics can vary widely,” said Brent Neiser, a certified financial planner and director of collaborative programs at the National Endowment for Financial Education in Englewood, Colo., which teaches consumers about personal finance.

Talk about goals

Find out where you each want to be 10 years from now, financially, Neiser said. For example, a discussion about housing would reveal a person’s attitude toward renting vs. owning a home.

Discussing such goals will reveal the person’s willingness to be disciplined financially, Neiser said.

“Some of these tendencies toward saving or spending may be previewed in your dating relationship, but you need to go beyond that,” Neiser said.

Avoid painting your partner with a broad brush.

“From the very same event, people can take very different meanings,” Klainer said. “A person raised in a very frugal household may interpret that her spouse who likes to spend money and likes to buy things is irresponsible, that he’s not going to be a very good father to her children because he can’t keep two nickels.”

“The man may think, ‘She’s a tightwad, she won’t let us have any fun,”‘ Klainer said.

Neither assumption is necessarily true, she said. “What they both need to do is talk about what their money behavior signifies, then they can negotiate a compromise.”

To find out if your financial behavior is compatible with your partner’s, try setting a trial 30-day budget together. Each person would put down expenditures and sources of income. Then after 30 days, compare the two lists.

“You can say, ‘Let’s see what our spending patterns are like,’ and then you can form a monthly budget from that,” Neiser said. “It lets you know the spending habits of the individual.”

So what happens if your styles are drastically different, but you still want to take the plunge?

“Differences can be very healthy,” Klainer said. “Marriage partners can actually be a brake on each other’s behavior.”

For example, the frugal partner can teach the spendthrift to develop more responsible, moderate behavior. On the other hand, “someone who has a joy of money, who understands the joyful things money can do, can teach the frugal one how to enjoy life more,” Klainer said.

“It depends on how you handle the differences,” she said.

But be prepared for the very real possibility that you two may not be a good match. “Hopefully,” she said, “these conversations will happen before you make a lifetime commitment to each other.”