At a wedding...when someone objects...

I think they can. That is, as long as the bride doesn’t tackle them for ruining her special day.

haha touche :]

I was at a wedding where this actually happened.The grooms mother hated the bride, and when the minister asked if there were any objections, she stood up and , crying and screaming, cussed the bride out! The minister, her husband, and thebest man “escorted” her out. The minister and the best man returned, and the wedding continued, but you could hear the mother screaming in the hall. Very embarassing.

haha oh man i would have been humiliated.

@Eureka; So, how did the marriage turn out? Not an auspicious beginning, I must say, and I hope that the groom didn’t inherit that particular gene from his mother.

Only ONE person from my husband’s family came to our wedding, because they objected to the inter-religious marriage, and the fact that we married for love and weren’t arranged. HAHAHAHA – the last laugh is on them, because our marriage has been the most successful, and they are dropping into divorce like flies – which is actually very very sad, because everyone has children.

Well, you can guess how it turned out. Very sad- they did really love each other, but they never had a chance. divorced after 3 years. I am surprised they lasted that long. He has been married twice since then, and none of them lasted either!

The only way that the wedding would be stopped is if the bride and groom requested that it was or if there were a legal reason it could not procede (bride or groom forgot to mention they were already married and their spouse showed up)

I’m not certain (I tried to find the info to be sure, but couldn’t) but I seem to recall that this tradition goes back to making sure that no one present knew of any legal (binding contracts, etc) or moral (bride not a virgin, etc) grounds that they should not be married.

The whole “speak now or forever hold your peace” thing is a relic of Church tradition. The marriages banns were a traditional series of announcements made in advance of the wedding that allowed time for any preexisting marriages or too-close relations to surface. A lot of weddings now omit this vestigial practice.

Also, a quick Google search reveals this same question showing up on Ask Yahoo three years ago.

Thanks aidje! I couldn’t find anything on it.