I'd suggest that you give yourself a couple weeks after the wedding just to relax together and enjoy the newness of being married and living together!
After that, go open a joint checking account (or have his name added to your existing account). Arrange for a portion of both your paychecks to go into that account, and use it for your daily needs.
At the same time, set yourselves up for one general-use credit card (make sure it gives you reward points that fit into your lifestyle). Pay it off every single month. Don't accumulate individual store credit cards, which only tempt you to spend money you shouldn't spend.
I assume that you're going to live in the townhouse you own. It's no longer your mortgage, your carpayment, and your two student loans -- you now share them, and they come out of the joint checking account.
Write out a budget that you can live with. Allow yourselves each a small "allowance" for which you don't have to consult the other. Set an amount for your groceries and other items. Every two weeks sit down briefly and check on where you are financially. From time to time you'll have to break the budget, but don't make it a habit. Also agree never to hide money or purchases from one another.
This is the perfect time for you to set up a budget. Being a young couple, you won't be able to afford everything you want, but since you're now saving whatever rent he's been paying, this is a great time for you to start putting money away without feeling the pinch.
Budget question: Could you do without the car he's about to buy? I don't mean, could you do without it conveniently -- saving money is rarely the most convenient option -- I mean, is it in any way possible? Could you take him to work? Could one of you carpool? I say this because you're a young couple with a mortgage, already one car payment, and two student loans -- it's not a friendly world out there financially, and you already have a good number of debts. If you could arrange to NOT have a second car payment, you could save $$$$$ early in your marriage, which would get you off on a stable financial footing. This could be a positive step that could help you for years and years to come. We did without a second car for the first three years of our marriage, and it was one of the best things we ever did. We only purchased a second car when I took a new job in a different town and driving together became impractical. But not having a second car payment allowed us the freedom to pay down our mortgage fast, and it allowed us to build up a comfortable nest egg before we had our first child.
While you're at the bank, open a short-term savings account in both of your names. Arrange for a portion of your paychecks to go into that account too, and use it for your "occasional needs": vacations, home repairs, downpayment on a car. Agree that you cannot take money out of this account without discussing it together. If you find yourself needing to withdraw money from this account for monthly bills, revisit your budget and cut something out. Emergencies will always happen, and you cannot do without this short-term savings account.
While you're in a money frame of mind, change the beneficiary on your life insurance, 401K and other long-term accounts.
Finally, don't worry about who's paying what percentage of the bills. It sounds like right now you might be doing the lion's share, but that doesn't mean it'll always be that way. Share everything, be honest about everything, and spend conservatively.
I read a book (the title was something like Your Money or Your Life, and the author was Elizabeth Warren -- it'd be a good thing for two newlyweds to read together!) once that gave what I think is a good ratio to shoot for:
You should spend no more than 50% on your needs. So your mortgage, your groceries, your credit card bill, your insurance, your student loans, your car payments, your utilities . . . they must all total to no more than 50% of your take-home pay. If you're spending more than this, you'll always be running short and you won't be comfortable. If you're spending more than 50%, you'll likely fall behind on your monthly bills and will end up with growing debt. If you're in a mess here -- and many people are -- you have two options: Bring home more money (second job), or cut out something from the budget (cable TV, restaurants meals).
You should allot 30% for discretionary spending. This is your money for lunch out with friends, a baby shower gift, a new jacket, tickets to a game or a movie. You can make a budget that allows for no fun-money, but you'll not be able to stick to it for long.
That leaves 20%; 10% for your long-term savings (retirement funds) and 10% for your short-term account. Personally, I think you need more for short-term savings, but we tend to travel often, and we use the short-term savings for that . . . but we're way under 50% for our gotta-haves, so we're able to save more.
It's not that he isn't responsible; I brought emotional baggage to the marriage. He gives me cash money for groceries and for his car payment, which is automatically debited out of our checking account. That is where his involvement with our checking account ends, mostly because the only money we put in there is enough money to cover the bills that automatically come out of it. The rest, we're on a cash basis. We each pay for our own gas/auto expenses. I don't ask him where his money goes, and he doesn't ask me, but it's not like we have an agreement to not talk about it; I'm just not interested. It works great for us.
