I think it depends. In earlier times, people started to live with each other together only after marriage. That means a deep responsibility for both, because you started sharing everything, means financial stuff, debts for a home, ...
Nowadays people normally start doing that before marrying. So you have already decided then to share everything with you, the good and bad stuff. I live with my partner now for 14 years, we renewed the house, we share our financial stuff...so we did that desicion among us a long time ago. For us marrying was simply a (for me drwoning) celebrity with family a friends. Additional around here, marrying usually means that you decided to become children, so you marry to receive the law protection for your kids. That doesnt sound very romantic, but still the cause behind the marriage, the desicion for children is something very romantic, because it means a really deep thrust between the partners.
So what your marriage depends, is simply upon you both. One week before marriage, when my partner and I was fully fed up with things we needed to prepare and anything, we made each other a wonderful commitment: So we were deeply issued because of the celebration itself...but none of us both did even miss a single bothered thought about being bound by law to us each other as partners, because this we both had decided years ago, and there was nothing we feared about that. For us it was simply a (goddamn -.-) huge celebration with friends and family we had to prepare.