Dirty, sexy money

In a small, windowless room in a drab Financial District office building, women in pantsuits talk about lighting candles and wearing lingerie. They feed spectators chocolate-covered strawberries and show images of a couple cuddling by a fire in a PowerPoint presentation. They pronounce words like "debt" and "credit" as though they were sexually provocative bedroom banter.

Welcome to "Pillow Talk: Make Talking About Money Sexy in Your Marriage!," the new seminar offered by the Boston planning firm Lantern Financial. Lisa J.B. Peterson, who opened Lantern in January with the hope of targeting young professional clients, hopes to make this her bread and butter: financial counseling for couples long before they're bickering over shared accounts, investment missteps, and irreconcilable differences over how to spend money.

It's good timing, now that markets have gone a-tumbling and couples of all ages are taking a closer look at their assets. The "pillow talk" seminar is free, but Peterson hopes some cash-conscious premarital pairs are willing to part with $300 for a one-on-two consultation she calls "Harmoney."

Peterson is not the only local adviser to target the premarital demographic. Financial consultants are noticing that it's actually pretty easy to attract young couples who want a third party to help them combine their lives.

Twenty- and 30-somethings are the ones who watched their parents go through checkbook-crippling divorces. They're the generation that monitors 401(k) investments on Blackberrys.

They've seen the television commercial that shows a young man singing about how he married a woman with a terrible credit score (a commercial, by the way, that can be as uncomfortable for nearlyweds to watch as a Valtrex ad, assuming they haven't shared their credit histories).

In short, they welcome the idea that someone else can navigate the embarrassing and complicated financial questions before the real commitment begins.

Carla Pond, another Boston-area financial adviser, was soliciting brides-to-be at the Westin two weeks ago and said she left with the names of more than 100 prospective clients.

"They tend to live together before they're married," Pond said of couples in their 20s and 30s. "I think they're cautious in general."

This cautiousness, however, doesn't mean these couples have an easier time talking through tough issues. The young professionals who signed up for "Pillow Talk" may have had the courage to show up, but they admitted they were shy about asking their partners about debt and financial philosophies.

One young woman joked that her soon-to-be husband would find himself "stuck" with her credit score (she said this as if he might not know it). Kaleen Konrad, a 25-year-old chemist, said that even though she and her fiance share a home, they have yet to delve into each other's financial histories, much less discuss how marriage will affect them.

"We haven't combined our money yet," she said. "All of this will affect us next May."

The room was silent as Peterson told a story of two former clients who had one of their first marital spats in a grocery store, when one partner wanted to buy generic jelly and the other wanted name-brand.

"They had their first married, blow-up fight in the jelly aisle," she said.

Peterson's "Pillow Talk" solution was to make financial conversations as romantic as possible. Discuss money in the bedroom, and approach financial planning with passion.

"Light some candles," she tells the class. "Sip some wine."

Inexpensive wine, of course. A new couple should be practical.

To find out whether these classes are a good idea, I asked someone who's been on the other end. Donna Marsella, who works for Divorce Financial Strategies in Worcester, has been unraveling the mess left by couples whose plans have failed (assuming there were any to begin with). She likes premarital financial counseling so much she's considering getting in on the business.

"By the time they get divorced, they don't even know what they have," she said.

She figures if she can help young couples avoid a life of discomfort and dishonesty followed by costly confessions, maybe she'll never have to see them again.

Meredith Goldstein can be reached at mgoldstein@globe.com.