You attend a wedding and hear that one line, “If anyone objects, speak now or forever hold your peace.” Most of the time, the peace is held. But what happens when it isn’t?
Take a gander at these 20 times people were NOT into holding their peace.
1. Missing the point with the catering comment.
My friend Steve was in a questionable relationship. He was with the girl, basically, because his family pressured it, and while he did find her attractive and all, she just didn’t treat him well.
Anyway, the marriage ceremony was underway, and right when they got to the end part, his brother Doug showed up blasting “What Is Love” out of a ghetto blaster and, needless to say, Steve didn’t end up getting married that night.
It was pretty messed up, his dad already paid the caterer.
2. I Joke, I Joke, I Kid, I Kid
So I’m attending this ultra chill beach wedding in small town Canada, I don’t know most anyone because it was my ex-step-aunts, so my brothers family I never see . It was fun anyways, the bride flew in on a seaplane and all the chairs were set up on the sand.
Anyways, the groom is from Trinidad and Tobago, so all his relatives traveled a long way and had cool accents, there was a party before; we were all a little bit tipsy.
So as the ceremony progresses, everyone is watching, gettin’ teary from the vows. Then the line comes ‘….any reason why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony speak now.’
Nobody expected this; The father of the groom gets up, flailing, and a collective gasp followed by silence overtakes this tiny venue. We’re all waiting with baited breath but, he’s just standing there with glassy eyes. Turns out he was baked; this 70+ man in a suit and dreads laughs and says ‘No, I kid, I kid’ and the whole spirit of the audience cheers up as he sits back down.
Rest of the reception, people are going up to him saying ‘good one’ or scolding him. Damn good night. Best wedding I’ve been to.
3. Just keeps walking away.
I was performing the ceremony. I ask the question as a part of the liturgy, and a guy gets up after the question and says, “Yeah, I object. That’s my wife.”
Bride’s mother is the only one to speak, and she says, “Who is that? AARON?!”
Sensing that something was amiss, I say, very calmly, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats while we conclude this.” I pull the guy aside, and he claims that they got married at 18, she abandoned him and they never divorced. He had been trying to get a hold of her, and he actually told her that if she didn’t at least get a legal divorce, he would show up at her wedding. She had just ignored it like it would just go away, never returned a call – basically just walked out at age 19, never returned. (Bride was near 30.)
So I ask the bride to step aside, with her parents. They say, “You never divorced him?” I’m in panic mode as I don’t know what to do. If she was still married, I couldn’t marry them. The groom comes over, ready to fight – me, the husband, anybody.
Complete disaster. Wedding was cancelled. They married a year later after the divorce went through, in a small private ceremony. And here’s the kicker: 2 years later she just walked out on him.
4. Not Welcome.
I didn’t have a traditional church wedding, but my husband’s mother showed up at the courthouse to yell one last time about how I probably have STIs (because I wasn’t a virgin), how I’d never belong in the family (we’re different races), and how we were rushing things (we’d been best friends for 13 years before being ‘together’).
I haven’t spoken to her since; he’s spoken to her twice since, both times to tell her she’s not welcome in our lives until she apologizes.
5. Impure
Back in the late nineties I was invited to the wedding of a guy I was in the army with. He married his girlfriend from Uni in his southern (Italian speaking) swiss Hometown-Church, all very traditional.
During the ceremony a girl crashes through the door, obviously drunk as hell, and starts cursing in Italian that the bride can not get married in white in a church as she is not a virgin and is not “pure.” The whole audience is stunned and waits for the reaction of the couple or someone in general. Suddenly the groom’s mother stands up and screams at her in the most vicious voice I ever heard “Manuela, shut up, everyone knows you take it up the ass!”
I’ve been told that the girl was the grooms high school girlfriend but he left her as she wanted to wait till marriage…
6. Best Line Indeed
The best line I’ve ever heard an officiant say is “if anyone has any objections to why these two should not be married, now is not the time. You had years leading up to this point, but please find me after the wedding because I love gossip.”
7. Incest
My dad’s seen an objection – he volunteers at a church. The bride and groom were siblings, and their father hadn’t told them until he objected (I believe he was estranged to both of them). They already had a kid apparently.
