It's near the end of a couple's wedding ceremony and everything is going according to plan: they both made it down the aisle, exchanged their vows, and are about to seal the deal when the priest tells those in the audience to "speak now or forever hold your peace." Nine times out of ten, no one says anything and the service continues. But what if someone speaks up?
Well, that's what happened in the following stories, which were recently shared in a Reddit thread asking people if they have ever objected or witnessed an objection to a wedding. Take a look at some of the most eye-catching and head-scratching stories in this edited (for clarity) collection of wedding objections.
They Got To Him A Little Too Late
“I objected before the wedding. The best man and I (bridesmaid) knew the bride was cheating on our friend (groom). We tried to talk him out of the wedding beforehand but they went through with it. I said I couldn’t be in the wedding because I couldn’t stand there and act like it was right.
The groom woke up late one month after the wedding. One month to the date exactly and found the texts of her cheating. They divorced right after that.”
“I Should Have Said Something”
“Thought about objecting during my mom’s wedding to my stepdad, but I was too big of a wuss. Then I spent the next two years watching him beat her from room to room.
I should have said something.”
The Bride Wasn’t Willing To Listen
“I objected before the wedding. The bride was my ex from high school, but she had a sister I was still good friends with (I’m the ex her family always really liked).
I knew her family opposed the wedding, I knew why, and I had a suspicion that her close friends might’ve thought the same about the dude she was marrying.
About a month before the wedding, I sat down with her and basically confronted her on everyone’s behalf. She had been on a string of bad relationships after me, but despite my love for indulging in schadenfreude, I didn’t actually want to see her get hurt by this guy (not physically, but emotionally). We had a long talk, she said she appreciated me voicing my concerns, but that she was sure she wanted to marry him.
She got married, moved out of state, took on a lot of debt for him, and ended up separating before a full year.
The last I heard, she is planning her second wedding with the guy that came after the first. Same stuff, different guy. You can’t fix stupid, I guess.”
If Only He Had Listened To His Brother
“My dad and I took my older brother outside on the day of his wedding and told him he could leave if he wanted. I offered to give him my car keys and the cash I had on me – about $2,000. I told him we’d go in and explain it to everyone in the church. He told us he had to go through with it.
He’s cheated a few times and got caught once having an actual girlfriend on the side. He almost got divorced because of it. He’s miserable, but he’s still married with two messed up kids. He knows they’re messed up.
He confided to me (while wasted) that he wished he’d listened to us 20 years ago.”
And They Thought Cancer Was The Hard Part
“My grandmother-in-law to be texted me a few hours before the ceremony, saying, ‘We love you, but in this family, we do not do divorce, so if you’re not ready, you can still back out now,’ or something to that effect. Mind you, I was about to marry her grandson, in the hospital, in between chemo treatments, during his second battle with leukemia.
We were together when he first got sick and the day we got the diagnosis, I went to battle for him. After we got through that and thought we were in the clear, we got engaged and started planning a beautiful 150-person wedding. Then we got the news seven months later that the leukemia was back, and that with the best possible scenario timeline, we would be in the hospital on our planned wedding day.
We decided the day we got word he had relapsed, that we were going right to the office to get a marriage license and going to get married in the hospital. I didn’t stop to think whether or not he would make it, I just knew I had to marry this man.
After the wedding, and during treatment, there were many lonely nights when I didn’t think he was going to make it, but somehow he did, and I am perfectly happy.
We are about to celebrate his two-year anniversary from his stem cell transplant, and he is doing fantastic, fully off of all medication, full genetic remission, and working full time as a teacher while working on his masters. The whole thing has been a huge rollercoaster, and while he feels great, and is just ready to move on, I have anxiety all most to the point of PTSD surrounding certain events/things.
As for Grandma, she is a good person, but a total meddler/almost narcissist. She apparently gave all of the grandchildren the same sort of message before their weddings. She wants to control every aspect of her family members lives, in a backwoods Texas sort of way… too bad I don’t roll that way, I am the queen of my castle! She’s tried to meddle in so many things, but the text before the wedding changed my gut feeling of her. It cut deep and broke me down.”
More Than One Marriage Was Ruined This Day
“This happened at the one and only wedding I’ve ever been to in my 20 years of life.
I was working for a small law firm at the time. Originally hired as a receptionist, I ended up being more of an assistant/clerk/officer of miscellaneous duties.
This involved working pretty closely with the junior associates and I got to be pretty good working buds with one of them. She was incredibly smart and insanely hot. Like, I’m 100% into men, but she was hot. This may have been the reason why the MARRIED partner of the firm was banging her in his office every Thursday afternoon. So I learned of their affair before I found out she, too, was in a relationship. A pretty serious one. As in, she was getting married in seven months. Eventually, I got invited, and I couldn’t say no because I had to work with her and it would just be awkward.
It turns out most of the firm (including the partner she was sleeping with) were invited, and I was just barely deemed cool enough to make the list.
During the ceremony, the officiant did the whole, ‘Does anyone have just cause for these two, and to not be married…’ routine.
No one objected.
Great, right? Expected, right?
Wrong.
The bride-to-be went off. This woman absolutely lost it. She was screaming, cursing at someone in one of the first few rows, and she started to cry – keep in mind this woman was in her 30s.
I was seated near the back-ish, so it took me a minute to see WHO she was yelling at – I stood up to see – it was the partner. She thought that they were in love and that when he saw her getting married, he would come to his senses, object, and they’d ride off into the sunset where (I assume but I’m kinda catty) all of his money would be waiting.
Guess who the partner brought with him as his plus one… his wife, of course. Two marriages were ruined that day.”
His “Grand Gesture” Ended With Him In Jail
“Like most folks, I haven’t objected at a wedding and would die of social anxiety if I did. But I met a guy who tried.
Meet Dave. Dave’s an older guy, likes to hang out with the young and hip crowd, even manages a few hookups with girls half his age. Dave dates a younger gal for a while, really likes her, but she moves on, and several years down the line, is about to get married. Dave and said gal meet up for a drink, and somehow, Dave gets the impression she still loves him and wants him to make a grand gesture to ‘prove’ his love.
Cut to a destination wedding several weeks later. Dave trailers his horse down to the wedding with the idea that he’ll walk the horse down the aisle and shout ‘I object’ and carry the girl away. Girl in question gets wind of Dave’s plan and calls the police. As Dave pulls up at the wedding and starts to get the horse out, police stop him and politely ask him to leave. Dave still really wants to prove his love, so being Dave, he starts throwing haymakers and yelling for love for the girl. All of this is happening like a movie scene on site of the outdoor wedding. Dave is hauled away and the wedding goes in in a much more surreal tone.
Kids, don’t be Dave.”
Just A Little Legal Humor
“My friend’s older brother is a lawyer. He was marrying a lawyer. Most of their friends are lawyers. The officiant was a judge who was a friend of theirs.
He and his fiancee thought it would be funny to plant someone in the audience. They got a friend to yell: ‘I Object,’ to which the judge yelled: ‘Overruled!’
It seemed to have gone over well for most, but I don’t think some of their family members got the joke.”
It Runs In The Family
“My uncle got married in a Vegas chapel like 20 years ago while he was wasted. He stayed with his wife, but they were more just dating than married. My uncle, his wife, his brother, and his brother’s girlfriend all went to Vegas some years later, and my other uncle got wasted and decided he was going to get married in a Vegas chapel as well.
My uncle who had done that before caught on to this and decided to intervene the hastily thrown together wedding. He busted through the door, told his brother he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life, and tried dragging him out.
Long story short: both of them were married in a Vegas chapel and are still with their respective wives. Their relationships may not be romantic, but they’re still both married.”
He Spent A Year Planning, But Not For This
“My wife-to-be and I had been dating since we were 13. I had gone overseas as a military contractor, and when I returned, I asked her to marry me. We spent a year planning everything.
On the day of the wedding, when asked if anyone objected, a guy stood up. My would be wife told him to sit back down and he proclaimed loud enough for everyone to hear that he had been with her the entire time I was away, including the time we were planning the wedding.
She then broke down and confessed that the only reason she was marrying me was that he had gotten her pregnant and he was a bum, whereas I at least had a job.
I left her, met a nice girl through work, and am now happily married. I see her around sometimes, looking miserable with him following behind her like a whipped puppy.”
At Least The Objections Were Before The Big Day
“I married a woman who is not Mormon but belongs to a church that sometimes gets confused with the Mormons. They’re called Community of Christ — formerly known as RLDS, a spinoff that broke away from the Mormons at the very beginning before Brigham Young went to Utah. In the 174 years since then, they’ve moved to be very liberal, pretty much the opposite of the Mormons in every way that counts.
Even so, a whole lot of my friends tried to talk me away from her once we started dating. I have several friends who are LGBT, who were worried that she would be anti-gay just like the ‘regular Mormons.’ They didn’t believe me at first when I told them that Community of Christ/RLDS practices marriage equality, and therefore they had no reason to worry.
Even my own mother was worried that she wouldn’t be invited to the wedding. She expected a temple-wedding like the Mormons practice, where only practicing Mormons would be invited. That’s not a practice that CoC shares. Again, no reason to worry.”
The Bride Wasn’t Expecting This Guest
“My mom and stepdad got married March of last year. We invited a lot of friends and one of them was this lady he worked with. When the priest asked if anyone objected, the lady stood up and told her story about how she loved my stepdad and wanted to be with him, and it was so awkwardly silent, but my mom was crying.
It was just a joke, and the priest, my stepdad, and the lady were in on it, and I got it all on video. My mom was crying and pushed him for a second, of course. I was honestly about to throw some hands.
It was messed up at the time, but we had so many good laughs afterward.”
This Is Why You Listen To Your Friends
“I didn’t object during the ceremony, but I did object in the yearlong engagement beforehand. I was the best man and I said I would stand up there for him if he wanted, but from everything I knew about her, it was a bad, bad, bad idea. They got divorced two years later and he jokingly tells me he wishes someone would have told him it would end badly.
As an aside, she was my ex and I knew she was a manipulative, money grabbing harlot that thought she was owed the world. She broke up with me because I didn’t drive a nice enough car for her to be seen in. She was also very picky about what Catholic teachings she fervently believed in – getting intimate before marriage was ok, but using protection was a sin…that kind of nonsense.”
Sometimes It Doesn’t Hurt To Say Something
“This was what happened to my small group leader in the church when I was in college. This girl that was a friend of his got engaged. On the wedding day, he stopped her right before she walked down the aisle and asked if he could have a word and explained how he was in love with her and always has been. She proceeded to cancel the music and summon the groom and tell him the wedding was off (in a nice way, as nice as it can be).
They have been married for 15 years, have three kids, and are amazing people. This guy was a boss.
Another story to follow up what happened on their wedding night that tops the cake. They both had their v-cards, had never seen another person without clothes, and so they were obviously very nervous on their wedding night because they grow up and very strict religious households. He decided to break the tension. As he got out of the shower, he decided to whip off his towel and is going to sit on her and try and fart. He launched on the bed and pushed out a loud fart….pushed too much, and poop flew out and landed on her chest and neck.
Long story short, they didn’t consummate the wedding that particular night.”
Did The Mother Expect It To End This Way?
“In the UK, you have to advertise for at least 30 days prior to your wedding. You can do this up to 12 months before your wedding. If there’s any reason to object, it’s usually done during this period. Depending on the legality of the objection, you may be called into a meeting with the registrar. Sadly, this eliminates most objections at the wedding.
A week or so before my wedding, my mom told me she didn’t like my (now) wife, and that it was not too late to run away. I didn’t listen and after her passive-aggressively criticizing my wedding, I’ve not spoken to her.”
They Were Worried She Would Share Her True Feelings
“I attended my friend’s stepbrother’s intimate (less than 20 guests) house wedding with the express purpose of stopping my friend from objecting.
I had never met anyone in her family before. I could tell that people were being as polite as they could to me, but sort of objected to me being there because the ceremony was literally just the groom’s family. Like, the Rabbi was his mother. It was that level of the intimate family only.
My friend has a very alarming psychological issue characterized by her becoming obsessed with people. In high school, she broke into a crush’s house/room, stripped and waited for him to come home. Since we don’t live in the movies, he was terrified of her and his parents drove her home, very alarmed.
She had this crush on her stepbrother, who she met when they were both teenagers. When she told us (her group of friends, bonded pretty specifically over keeping her from pressing self-destruct), everyone told her NOT to go through with her plan of letting him know she was in love with him before the wedding. But then she started to talk about objecting DURING the wedding. We were stressing out about her ruining this poor couple’s day. And then very, fortunately, she asked me to be her plus one.
I spent the entire event listening to her whisper about how upset she was that people kept complimenting the couple. She said a few off things a little too loudly but I kind of deflected and gave people excuses.
I think what actually saved the ceremony was that the question ‘Does anyone object?’ only came up as a kind of throwaway joke. It wasn’t this big dramatic pause. She was upset about that, and actually got up after and went into the kitchen before the ceremony was technically over. But it just seemed kind of rude, not I’m in love with the groom/my stepbrother weird.
After the wedding, she obsessively regretted not confessing her feelings. She kept trying to find someone to agree that it would be better to tell him how she felt.
Honestly, after the wedding, it still seemed like it would taint the event but her mental health is clearly the more important piece. Her friends became divided on whether she should tell her stepbrother or not with everyone pushing her to seek treatment and possibly medication.
She got some help through an online psychologist. This individual apparently told her that her feelings were valid and she had every right to object. She told the stepbrother after he got back from his honeymoon.
I would love to tell you that the fallout was some mental health assistance from her family, but that’s not how it shaped up. Her stepbrother (and his brothers) were extremely kind about it. But she was very upset that she didn’t get the response she wanted.
She was also obsessed with a kind or overly flirtatious married coworker around this time. That also ended disastrously.
This girl comes from a well-to-do family. She’s highly intelligent and quite beautiful. Her life is a series of self-generated disasters that no amount of logic or outside good will have been able to help her avoid.
Mental illness is real and it’s tragic.”
A Joke Only A Few Understood
“First of all, my mother is from Russia and my dad is from England. When they met, my mother was fascinated by British culture and, in particular, literature. She’s a huge fan of Jane Austen and ritually watches ‘Pride and Prejudice’ once a year. Second, my dad is from the streets of London and isn’t a fan of ‘fancy’ literature. So whenever my mom watched ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ my dad would poke fun at her by using the catchphrase, ‘Ho, ho, ho, Mr. Darcy indeed,’ which I found hilarious.
My parents were at a wedding and were stupid enough to bring me, a 2-year-old child, with them. As you can imagine, there were many people present wearing suits, and so I, confusing this situation with an Austen novel, decided to use my dad’s catchphrase. Out loud. At a wedding. With a whole crowd of people present.”