When it comes to weddings, not everyone is a hopeless romantic. Some of these people aren't afraid to say it. Especially when this comes up at a wedding: "Speak now or forever hold your peace." Sometimes their objections are totally valid and other times they're ridiculous and rude. They all have one thing in common though, they're all insanely awkward.
You may have heard some crazy lines thrown out during this moment at a wedding but what caused it? And what happened afterward? We scanned Reddit to find the worst, the funniest, and the most uncomfortable 'I object!' scenarios, and here they are. This content was edited for clarity.
Not The Right Time Buddy!
“At my cousin’s wedding, her twin brother interrupted at that moment to propose to his then-girlfriend. He had a huge speech prepared and everything. The bride and groom were clearly appalled. The mother was trying to get him to sit down, but man was he determined. The worst part was likely his girlfriend saying no.
Talk about an awkward wedding!”
Her Opinion Didn’t Matter…To Anyone
“I went to a gay wedding last summer.
One of the grooms’ sister stood up and yelled, ‘Marriage is a MAN and a WOMAN!’
She got kicked out and to add insult to injury, it was their parents who escorted her out.”
Wedding Day Mix Up
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“I was sitting at a wedding for my cousin Jerry. Suddenly, the ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ part happened and instantly total silence. The wedding did not continue. The priest was obviously waiting for something. A relative was squirming in his seat beside me, muttering that he can’t believe that he has to be the one who has to do this. I asked him what he meant.
He casually explained that cousin Jerry was cheating on his bride with a girl named Heather. I asked if that was Jerry’s girlfriend.
He answered, ‘Yes, a secret girlfriend,’ and asked if I could I believe it…
I said, ‘No, not groom Jerry, the other Jerry.’ He realized that in our family we had at least seven Jerrys, two of whom actually called themselves Jerry. And guess what… Heather was other Jerry’s girlfriend.
He actually told this false rumor around to about 30 percent of the bloody congregation and slipped a hundred dollars to the priest. Not that he took it… no, it took a couple threats about clocking a holy man for him to take the hint.
Luckily, the couple wasn’t mad, they were just happy to be getting married and accepted the priest’s apology afterward about the pause. It was a bit more awkward for the guests as this was not a couple of seconds pause, but more like 2-3 minutes.”
Dad To The Rescue?
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“I was at a college buddy’s wedding when a childhood friend of the bride tried to stand up and profess his love for her.
The bride’s father immediately stood up and tried to haul off said guy by the ear, except he was so mad, he pulled too hard and partially severed the guy’s ear. I laughed a little too hard when the dude screamed like a small girl, but I was not the only one. A few people even applauded.”
Maybe Don’t Go To Your Ex-Stepmom’s Wedding?
“My ex-stepmom was getting married to my cousin. I really liked my cousin, and my ex-stepmom was one of the worst people I knew, so I tried to talk him out of it, but he was committed. They said their vows and everything, but when the pastor asked if anyone objected, I stood up. I talked about how terrible of a person my ex-stepmom was, and how she was tricking my cousin. I practically begged him not to marry her, but he wouldn’t even look at me. After a minute of me talking, I realized that everyone else in the room was actively hating me, so I left. They’re still married to this day — five years. They seem to be genuinely happy.
I’m starting to wonder if I just had the wrong idea about my ex-stepmom. I go over to their house sometimes and eat dinner.”
It Wasn’t Something They Could Forgive Or Forget
“This happened at one of my friend’s sibling’s weddings. Her parents were super conservative and hadn’t gotten the chance to know the daughter’s fiancé very well before they got married. In their minds, all that was relevant about him was that he was 10 years older than her and had been previously divorced. They had made subtle and not-so-subtle comments here and there before the wedding that they weren’t happy about it. It should have been a forewarning of what was to come.
The day of the wedding, everything was beautiful. My friend’s sister and her fiancé were ecstatic to be getting married and invited friends and family from both sides to their outdoor wedding. All was going well until the preacher asked the audience if anyone had objections as to why they should get married…and as serious as can be, dad of the bride stood up and said, ‘Her mother and I object,’ and then after a long hesitation, he sat back down.
Silence.
No one could believe how that just happened. Not knowing exactly how to handle it, the preacher just said ‘okay’ and finished the ceremony as planned. I can’t even imagine how the bride and groom must have felt. My friend said the tension in the room was unbelievable. But they got married, all the same, they just do a lot of avoiding the in-laws as one might imagine.”
Keep Friends Close And Your Ex-Girlfriend’s Fiancé Closer
“This was a close friend of mine’s wedding. I had known this dude for years. We’ll call him Ray. Ray met a girl we’ll call Katie, she already had a daughter, cool right? She was never married to the other dude because they just didn’t click and they had a very amicable separation. They shared custody of the child, there was no fighting, no demand for child support, a very ‘in a perfect world’ type situation.
Katie was pretty cool and got along with our friend group pretty well. Soon enough, the old boyfriend she had her daughter with became best friends with Ray.
A couple of years went by and Ray and Katie decided to get married. And around this time, he confided in me that frequently his best friend (i.e the daughter’s father I’ll name Jeff) made references to this girl, and there was some vague evidence of it not being as amicable a separation as it had seemed.
Jeff was pretty quiet about his life and talked about girls pretty often, but we learned later he had actually been holding out for Katie the WHOLE time.
So assuming Jeff was his best friend, Ray makes him one of the groomsmen along with myself at the wedding. He keeps telling Ray about how great Katie is and not to choke and that he was there for him etc.
Ray then told him to stop cause he was psyching him out.
So, that song started playing and the ceremony was about to begin. I finally met back up with my significant other at our table, Katie and Jeff’s daughter is playing on the dance floor.
Suddenly the music stopped, and the DJ said this song is from Jeff to Katie and said he still loved her, and that it should’ve been him.
‘It Could’ve Been Me’ by Billy Ray Cyrus started BLASTING all over the hall.
Then Jeff went up and got on one knee and asked Katie to dance with him and be his wife. She slapped him, Ray lost his marbles and got in a fight. The cops were called and the wedding was ruined. I went back to the hotel with my significant other and let them all figure it out on their own.
They’re divorced now.”
Smart Kid
“My dad was marrying his third wife.
My stepbrother and I were in the wedding party. He was about 6, I was 10. The preacher asked if anyone objected and my brother raised his hand so very politely. My dad asked why, and my stepbrother replied, ‘Because I want you to promise to take me fishing whenever I want, first.'”
She Waited For The Right Moment To Get Her Revenge
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“When the pastor got to the part ‘or forever hold your peace,’ the bride said, ‘Yes, I’d like to say something.’ Then she turned around to her guests and said, ‘I’d like to thank my maid of honor for sleeping with my fiancé last night.’
With that, she threw her bouquet and stormed off. The story even made it on the radio at the time.”
He Trained The Kid Well
“I stuck my hand up at my mother’s second wedding when I was about nine. I hated the guy. I just got ignored. They divorced two years later and being a smug 11-year-old, I just said, ‘I told you so.’
On a separate occasion, my sister made me so angry on the run up to my wedding because she had a major tantrum because she wasn’t asked to be a bridesmaid. Six years later, my sister announces she’s getting married in twenty-four months. When I asked what my role was, she told me it was ‘to sit there and shut up.’ She asked my son, who was four at the time, to be the page boy. I spent the next two years training him to say ‘Denny Crane’ everytime he heard me say ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ (I was binge-watching the Boston Legal boxset when I got the idea)…
The day of the wedding, it went perfectly according to plan. The boy followed the bride’s party down the aisle and stood front and center of the church alongside my sister, soon to be brother-in-law, bridesmaids, best man, and vicar. The vicar spoke those immortal words ‘if anyone knows of any lawful reason why these two should not get married, speak now or forever hold your peace.’ I was grinning like a jerk as she started the sentence and right on cue my six-year-old boy pointed both index fingers at the vicar with his thumbs raised, winked and said ‘DENNY CRANE.’
This was promptly followed by my sister spinning round to glare at me (I swear if looks could kill I’d have turned to stone and burst into flames simultaneously). A look of utter confusion on the vicar’s face and the rest of the church. My mother was laughing so hard tears were running down her face (another huge William Shatner fan). It is, to this day, one of my greatest prank accomplishments. My father tore me a new one afterward and the groom thanked me cause he thought it was hilarious. I felt a bit awful cause the boy is now nine and to this day, responds with Denny Crane everytime he hears it (my wife had to gag him at her sister’s wedding).”
He Had It All Planned Out
“I sat next to this smelly guy at a wedding once. We were both friends of the bride, but I didn’t know him. Anyway, we made small talk beforehand but he seemed sweaty and nervous. After the wedding began, I looked over and he had a note card in his hand that had a whole thing written on it. I glanced over curiously and read ‘I object’ at the top and thought, ‘Oh no… Oh crap, he’s gonna do the thing. This gross sweaty man is going to ruin my friend’s wedding.’
But the minister never said the ‘if anyone has a reason’ line, thank God. I opted not to tell anyone about that since it’s possible that I misread the card or the situation, but he didn’t make a speech at the reception, so I don’t know what the card was for if not that.”
Taking “Mr. Steal Your Girl” Too Literally
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“In my culture, another man could come and forcefully take the woman away to be his wife instead during the ceremony. But that’s why we traditionally have the grooms brothers and uncle ‘guard’ the wife. The one time I did see this happen was when the bride’s ex-boyfriend pulled up in a van and with a couple of guys, but what those guys didn’t know was that my family had the tallest Asians around (all above 6 feet). That day, the men from the van got stomped.
My parents were from Laos where that happened. Specifically the Hmong culture. Most Hmong Americans nowadays don’t follow those rules anymore because it’s really messed up.”
This Wedding Made Him Sick To His Stomach
“I just recently got married. It was the coldest temperature on record and, to make matters worse, the stomach bug was going around town full force. My poor brother got the stomach bug right before the ceremony started. He was our only groomsman as well. While everyone was walking in, he was already as pale as a ghost and swaying back and forth. Then, when the question was asked, he raised his hand and said he wasn’t going to make it, then rushed out of the ceremony to the nearest restroom.
He was so embarrassed by it and wouldn’t talk to me about it. I tried to make a joke about seeing his sister in a wedding dress and not being able to stomach it, but, I knew he was beating himself up about it.
He didn’t ‘ruin’ my wedding and my only regret was that I wasn’t able to get a photo with him before he left, but we can always photoshop him in, so no worries!”
And The Rest Is History
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“I was a waiter at a venue that had a lot of weddings. We typically watched the wedding ourselves from the second floor and waited for everyone to come up for the reception. A guest for the wedding arrived a few hours early, so he sat in the restaurant and had a few too many drinks. He yelled, ‘DON’T FREAKING DO IT!’ There was the typical gasp by the crowd, then it was just silence as people from the bar (not part of the wedding, but the bar were outside on the same floor) escorted him out.
I really wish I knew what happened next.”
The Lawyers Got Jokes
“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 fiancée 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 it.”
He Forgot The Bread Knife!
“When I was a very young lad, I attended a wedding in which a man stood up at the point of objection and exclaimed, ‘You forgot the bread knife!’
For the next 15 years, my brother and I were convinced that it was wedding tradition to have a bread knife and forgetting it was a mortal sin.
Turns out the guy was just nuts.”
So It Was Just The World That Objected
“The last wedding video I made was an outdoor wedding facing a big valley. On the other side of the valley is a big radio tower. Just as the preacher said ‘does anyone,’ a big bolt of lightning hits the tower. I was the only one who saw it since I was the only one not paying attention to the ceremony. During the vows, I would always leave the camera alone. Just as I wondered how long it would take the sound to get to where we were, the preacher got to ‘or forever keep your peace’ the thunder hit and the whole place shakes violently.
There was a long pause and then the preacher says, ‘Well that’s never happened before.’
I asked if they wanted that to stay in the video and they did. It has been almost 10 years now and as far as I know, they’re still married.”
Yeah, He Blew His Chance
“So I was chilling with my friends before it happened. One of them, before we entered the room, was all, ‘Oh I’m going to act a fool when they ask for objections.’ However, he was all inflated and didn’t act on his words at all throughout our many encounters, so we joked around a bit more before we enter and sit down at our designated spots. Then the wedding was about to begin.
I noticed something peculiar about the face of the woman who was being married. Then it hit me. So when they asked, ‘If anyone has a reason…’ I responded:
‘THAT’S WHO I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DATING TOMORROW.’
Everybody laughed, I ran out in embarrassment. It turns out, the girl that I met online had a sister – a twin sister, who was now married to my friend, who never brought this up before.
I texted her one final time after the incident for a date at the movies; she responded ‘maybe’ and never came back to that conversation.
So there’s still a chance.”