What happens if someone speaks when the minister at a wedding says "speak now, or forever hold your peace"? Not much of anything, apparently, unless you're on "The Bold and the Beautiful."
I'm trying to remember if I've ever been at a wedding where this has been said. It wasn't said at mine, that I recall. I swear I remember hearing it said, and feeling an irrational urge to say something even though I had nothing to say.
But maybe I'm just mistaking movies and TV for my real life again. (Marge Simpson to Homer: "Is this what you thought married life would be like?" Homer: "Pretty much, except I thought we'd drive around in a van and solve mysteries!")
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I desperately wanted to say something at my cousin's wedding (he and the wife have been obviously miserable forever, so I was right, darn it), but *cough* they left THAT bit out of the ceremony. Somehow I don't think it was a coincidence.
I have seen someone speak up. It is uncomfortable at best. The Minister, Lutheran wedding, put the brakes on the wedding. Pulled the offending party off to one room, bride and groom into the other room. The Minister then took the better part of an hour to talk to everyone and find out what was going on. Happy ending, wedding went on after the delay. Turns out the offending party was an ex-boyfriend that just would not let it go. Father of the bride actually called the police, not to have the guy arrested but to have him escorted out with protection. Which was a good thing, due to the groom and groomsmen planning to injure the guy.
Hey Gael:
They did say it at Mike's and my wedding, and if that was the one you remember biting your tongue at, I do thank you.
The rector who performed the ceremony waited quite a while (it seemed to me, anyway) like he was expecting someone to pipe up. I remember thinking, "Come on, dude, let's go!" He was mad because I didn't want the fertility blessing (yeah, that's all I need, more kids). Whatever.
I've heard that nowadays, the "reason" needs to be some legal reason they can't be married (like if someone at the wedding knows that bride and groom are really long-lost siblings, or that the bride is already married to someone else, or something like that) and it can't just be "he's a jerk!" or anything like that.
Hi, Gael!
I begged our rector to leave that part out of our ceremony, but she said its inclusion was Oregon STATE LAW -- probably for the reasons talia mentioned.
Not that I'd have expected anyone to speak up, but still, it's a really tense moment, and thank god she only waited about 1.5 seconds before moving on...
It was said at our wedding. Afterwards, one of my bridesmaids, mother to the flowergirls, told me that a mutual friend had attempted to teach the kids to raise their hands at that point, but their mother interceded.
When the question was actually asked, there was a pregnant pause, so fraught with tension that everyone started laughing. The minister said "You have good friends."
The idea IS mainly to make sure there's no accidental incest, but I've heard stories, maybe urban legends, about brides who say "I have a reason. The groom screwed my maid of honor" or the great scene in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" where the groom's brother announced that he loved someone else. Of course, the time to bring that sort of thing up is BEFORE the wedding, preferably MONTHS before.
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