What exactly DOES happen if one was to stand and object to a wedding union in progress?

What they mean is “are there any legal objections?”
Like if one of them are underage or already married. Otherwise, they will still get married, regardless if Joe in the back row still has a crush on the bride.:)

If someone actually objects is the wedding null and void

If this were true, you’d think weddings would be crashed by disgruntled ex-lovers left and right.

@FutureMemory True. haha

Seriously, I realized I never knew what this really means? :-P

To some extent, it depends on the faith tradition. Typically, the person making the claim, the bride and groom and the priest/minister/etc, leave the sanctuary and go into a private room to hear the claim as to why they marriage should not move forward. Depending on the reason (e.g., he is already legally married to me), the wedding will not continue until things are sorted out. If it is a simple statement of “but I love her more,” the wedding will go on and the claimant will likely be escorted from the premises.

In some faith traditions, the bans of marriage are published three times (either in the churches’ bulletin and sometimes even in the newspaper) to allow claimants to voice their concerns before the ceremony is already in progress.

@Kayak8 Fascinating!

Wellllllll… I guess that your name would be struck from the list of attendees at the reception. That’s just for starters.

But it’s the last chance for Dustin Hoffman to stand up and say to the prospective bride, the prospective bride’s parents (especially her mother, of course) and the entire assembly that “I belong with that woman!” ... and let her decide the same.

Other than that, yeah, legal objections, mostly.

PS: “Banns”.

The language of the ceremony may include a reference to a lawful objection, such as this:

“Therefore if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.”

This sort of objection happened in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, when Jane was about to wed Mr. Rochester. The brother of Rochester’s mad wife spoke up and said he had a living spouse. That pretty much halted the ceremony right there.

The cowboy wedding I was at, it got the objector shot by the bride’s father. The objector’s brother shot the brides father, the bride’s mother fainted, the best man and the groomsmen then had a shoot out with the objector’s kinfolks. And the preacher ran off with the maid of honor.

This was all staged of course, but it made for a memorable wedding.

@WestRiverrat Haha..lends a whole new meaning to “shotgun wedding”.

@CWOTUS Absolutely is banns (I think, as a lesbian, there was something Freudian in the use of “bans”)!

I’m guessin’ that you are not planning to attend the reception….

@WestRiverrat Can you tell us more about this event? I’d give anything to have been there!

@FutureMemory It was kind of a combination of McClintock, Little House on the Prairie and Unforgiven, all rolled into a wedding and reception. The bride and groom met at work at a tourist stop in western Nebraska where they acted in the old west stage show and shootout.

They kept the theme for their wedding and the reception and worked in some scenes reminiscent of their favorite shows.

Very cool! Thanks, @WestRiverrat.

@Coloma Thanks for asking this question and getting answers.

I’m the one who owns the regret of not standing up and objecting at a wedding. From what has been posted, the reason does not fall under the rule of “lawful objection”. It might have given the bride an opportunity to reconsider before saying “I do.”

@Pied_Pfeffer Yes, you figured out I was asking when your sharing in another Q. piqued my curiosity and made me aware I never knew exactly what objecting would do, if anything. :-)