Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

Did it really have to be the dragon objecting...?

Donkey: Look, you wanna do this right, don'tcha?
Shrek: [about to burst into the cathedral] What are you talking about?
Donkey: There's a line, there's a line you gotta wait for: the priest's gonna say, "Speak now or forever hold your peace," and that's when you say, "I object!"

— Shrek

The Love Interest is about to get married to the Romantic False Lead, everything seems to be going smoothly, and the cleric gives the line, "Speak now or forever hold your peace" — which in the world of fiction is basically an invitation for someone to voice their objection to the marriage. The usual way the trope goes is for another character to burst in with an Anguished Declaration of Love, and possibly a denouncement of the hypotenuse as an utter Jerkass. If the wedding crasher is one of the good guys, the love interest will dump the hypotenuse and reciprocate the protagonist's feelings, and the new couple may even get married on the spot. Cue Happily Ever After.

Thanks to Pop-Cultural Osmosis, people will anticipate shenanigans of some sort when the officiant gets to this line, both in fiction and in Real Life. That lends this trope well to being played with. Some of the more common variants are attempts to get the officiant to Skip to the End, the objection being particularly stupid or irrelevant and easily ignored, a character whom everybody expects to voice an objection staying silent, using the objection as an excuse to wreak havoc, and someone voicing the objection before the line is even said (and getting shouted down because you have to wait for the line). It's also a great opportunity for a Big Damn Heroes moment, if the villain is forcing someone to marry him or her under duress.

It's a Discredited Trope these days; the line is indeed said in Real Life weddings, but not as much as it used to be. The original purpose of the line was to see if anyone knew any legal reason that the couple couldn't be married (e.g. one of them is already married to someone else, or the parties are related to each other, or one of them is underage). Modern wedding ceremonies tend to drop the line, mostly because of this trope — it's an invitation for some Stalker with a Crush to crash someone's wedding, and a few Jerkasses have been known to crash strangers' weddings and, upon hearing the line, promptly call the bride a disease-ridden whore. And now that civil marriages have largely superseded religious marriages in most Western nations (at least on the legal end of things), the government can just refuse to issue a marriage license upon discovering that the marriage cannot legally take place; likewise, for that matter, a court can retroactively declare it void if this is discovered afterwards, or, often, for such tropes as Shotgun Wedding, etc. That said, the line is still required for certain religious wedding ceremonies, most notably in the Church of England.

The trope commonly goes with Race Against the Clock — if you're too late and the officiant has already said the line, you don't get another shot. See also "The Graduate" Homage Shot, involving a particularly famous use of this trope (or attempt thereof, as the case may be). Compare with Wedding Deadline, the other dramatic moment to interrupt the ceremony.

Examples:

Advertising

• Car commercials lend themselves well to this, because of the Race Against the Clock element requiring a good car:
  • The Volkswagen television commercial "Big Day" shows a man frantically driving cross-country in a race against his beloved's wedding to another — which he can accomplish in record time, because he's driving his great new Volkswagen — and throwing the church doors open right as the priest says, with dramatic reverberation, "speak now or forever hold your peace". That's the only dialogue in the entire commercial.
  • A Toyota commercial shows a man driving through a country club in his Camry being chased by another car, narrating, "Started my Camry. Drove to her wedding. Did not forever hold my peace." Cut to the bride in the backseat, smiling.
• Advertisement for Meow Mix cat food with Baxter the cat - his owner Frank, is at a wedding and the justice of the peace declares this, then Frank gets a call from Baxter. As always, his wife urges him not to take it, but he does and Baxter meows the Meow Mix song.
• In this "Liberty Mutual" commercial, Doug is officiating a wedding for LiMu Emu, and when he gets to this part, an emu named Kevin squawks, to everyone's dismay... and to Doug's ire.

Anime and Manga

• Billy Bat has a sad variation involving an interracial wedding in 1959. It's the white groom's racist family who objects at the crucial line. The groom ultimately decides not to go along with them.
• In The Castle of Cagliostro, Lupin, via recording, interrupts the Archbishop (who is actually Lupin in disguise) right after he says the line. Chaos ensues.
• In the second season of Code Geass, Xingke interrupts the Arranged Marriage of Tianzi and Oddyseus. His overt motive is political — it's a sham marriage designed to essentially hand over the Chinese Federation to Britannia, which he doesn't want to happen — but he's also clearly got a thing for Tianzi. Then it gets complicated when Zero and the Black Knights show up with their own objection, and they're less elegant about it.
• In The God of High School Jin and Daewi smash Mira's wedding to a Corrupt Corporate Executive who only wants her for her family's techniques.
• Played for Laughs (and subverted) in Great Teacher Onizuka, when Kunio races against time, crashes his single mother's wedding to some middle-aged salaryman, and promptly goes on a rampage — until she angrily reveals that she was just modeling the dress for said salaryman, her client.
• Parodied in Kimagure Orange Road, where Kyosuke tries to stop Madoka from getting married. Or so he thinks, because Madoka was only replacing the true bride (her older sister) during a wedding rehearsal.
• In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, Kira Yamato interrupts an Arranged Marriage by landing his Humongous Mecha in the middle of the ceremony. It works like a charm. Interestingly enough, said bride is Princess Cagalli, his twin sister, and his objection is on behalf of her boyfriend, who's also his best friend. And he kind of had to do it in his Gundam — it was a political marriage, and he had to be able to take on the Orb's military to get to her (but since he's a One-Man Army he could deal with them pretty easily).
• My Bride is a Mermaid interestingly does this with a Shinto wedding ceremony. The eponymous mermaid-bride is interrupting another mermaid's wedding — and since they're both powerful daughters of even more powerful mermaid Yakuza bosses, she's also carrying a giant katana.
• In My-Otome, as a variation, Akane's lover Kazuya disrupts her Meister ceremony, just as she is about to become the King of Florince's Otome. He proclaims that he loves her, and the two flee away. It is later revealed that Kazuya becomes the new King of Cardair and Akane is forcefully contracted to him as his Otome, allowing them to be together but effectively cancelling the possibility of any real relationship between them.
• In the manga Negima Neo, Negi interrupts the wedding between Asuna and Fate. Curiously, in this Alternate Universe, Negi has no reason to suspect that Fate is secretly evil — he just felt it was a waste. The interruption degenerated into a ranged battle.
• In Nisekoi, Raku and friends crash Marika's Arranged Marriage and convince her to become a runaway bride.
• In One Piece's Thriller Bark arc, Sanji saves Nami from marrying Absalom this way. Or rather, he tries to — despite Taking the Bullet for Nami and beating the shit out of Absalom, it's Nami's friend Lola who technically actually breaks up the wedding.
• In Rainbow: Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin, Joe tries to convince Mario to do this at Setsuko's wedding. However, Joe declines to do so, and even seems fine with the result.
• In Speed Grapher, Kagura Tennouzou tries this in the wedding of her mother Shinsen and her henchman Suitengu. Not only didn't it work, but Shinsen dies. Saiga tries this later, when Kagura herself is about to be forced to marry Suitengu — it works much better this time.
• In Strawberry Panic!, Nagisa and Tamao are possibly about to be announced Etoile. Most Etoile pairs end up becoming couples if they aren't already, and Shizuma bursts into the chapel at the last minute to prevent this.
• Tales of Wedding Rings has a variant: In the first chapter, Sato follows Hime through a portal to another world, worried that he'll never get a chance to tell her how he feels. He finds her in the middle of a wedding where she is about to marry some guy she never met in order to bestow upon him the power of the Ring King. Hime immediately kisses Sato instead, giving him the power and marrying him instead. Her fiancé, Marse, is surprisingly okay with this; he was worried about the responsibilities of being Ring King, and he's in love with someone else anyway.

Comic Books

• Back to the Future: In "Biff to the Future", Doc Brown goes back to the day Biff Tannen's parents got married and plans to use that cue to prevent the marriage so Biff won't be born. But when he gets there, he learns he's too late — it was a Shotgun Wedding, engineered by Biff's grandma.
• Lampshaded in The Batman Adventures #16 at Joker and Harley's wedding. Joker keeps pressing the justice of the peace to speed up the ceremony — and when he gets to this part, Poison Ivy surfs through the window on a vine.
  Ivy: I object!
  Joker: I knew it! I KNEW IT!
• Played absolutely straight in the Douwe Dabbert story Florijn the Loafer.
• The Flash: At the wedding of Wally West and Linda Park, it was the bride who objected, not because she didn't want to get married, but because she knew there would be a certain amount of trauma preceding the ceremony and she wanted to make sure that the groom had his head screwed on straight before they did anything irrevocable.
• The Incredible Hulk: During John Byrne's run, Bruce Banner and Betty Ross get their wedding interrupted at this point by Betty's father, General Ross — who's armed with a gun. He then shoots Rick Jones, but Betty tells him the only way he could prevent her from marrying Bruce is to kill her — and he stands down. Rick, meanwhile, not only survives, but refuses to be taken to the hospital immediately:
  Rick: Mr. Priest, take some 30 seconds and get this couple married at long last, and let's go to the hospital after that.
• In one MAD comic, the priest officiating at Frankenstein's monster's wedding asks if anyone has any objections, and one man says he does, since the groom is a monster. The monster kills him, at which point the priest asks if anyone else has ay objections.
• Subverted in Nikolai Dante at the wedding of Jena to Arkady/Dmitri: the priest says the line, and there is a pause, as everyone in the church fully expects Nikolai to burst in at that moment. Since he is otherwise occupied, the wedding goes ahead, but Jena never does say "I do."
• The Sensational She-Hulk: In issue #21, She-Hulk whacks Abominatrix with a street lamp and sends her flying into a church where a couple are about to get married. In response to the priest asking why the couple should not get married, Abominatrix responds "He's drunk as a skunk, she's a bulimic little Gold Digger. Good enough reason?". To add insult to injury, the drunk groom thanks Abominatrix for saving him from making a mistake.
• Spider-Man:
  • Spider-Man thinks he should do this to prevent his Aunt May from marrying Doctor Octopus. But Hammerhead beats him to the punch, and he objects not because he has any interest in the wedding, but because he's after the island with a nuclear reactor that Aunt May inherited.
  • Parodied in issue 600 at the wedding of Aunt May and J. Jonah Jameson's father. No one interrupts, but J. Jonah Junior is officiating, so:
    Junior: Anyone? This's your window. Right here. Take your time, I can wait.
    Senior: Junior.
    Junior: (sigh) Very well.
• Superman: Subverted in Superman: The Wedding Album, when Lois's father arrives late to Lois and Clark's wedding, just before the line, and everyone assumes he's going to object. He assures his wife he wouldn't interrupt the ceremony for the world.
• In Titeuf, the priest says the French equivalent, "Speak now or keep quiet forever." Titeuf, who had been instructed to keep quiet during the wedding, loudly complains that he agreed to keep quiet for a few hours, not forever!
• In the Wallace & Gromit comic The Curse of the Ramsbottoms, the titular characters and their allies crash the wedding of Wendolene and the Big Bad this way.

Fan Works

• Empath: The Luckiest Smurf:
  • In "Empath's Wedding", Empath's rival Hefty wants the opportunity to tell Smurfette how much he loves her and that he wants to marry her, and Papa Smurf tells him that as he's officiating the wedding, Hefty will have that chance when he says this line. But then Smurfette, Hefty, and Empath end up swapping hearts with each other to show how much they care for each other — at the ceremony, Hefty doesn't take the bait — though Grouchy does, as he starts to say "I hate..." but out of nervousness he ends up saying "I would hate that Empath and Smurfette would not be smurfed together as a married couple for all time!" When the ceremony proceeds onward, Grouchy mutters under his breath, "But I hate that it couldn't have been me with Smurfette."
  • In "Wedding Bells For Bigmouth", Gargamel the evil wizard takes this opportunity to speak out his "objection" to the wedding as he, Azrael, and Scruple show up at Bigmouth and Bignose's wedding to capture the Smurfs.
• An ER Fanfic based around Mark and Elizabeth's wedding parodied this, with the ceremony constantly being interrupted by every former lover (or would-be lover) of either half of the couple.
• The Many Dates of Danny Fenton: In "Danny and Kim", when the line is mentioned during Danny and Kim's wedding, Vlad objects... "To both of them living!"
• My Life as a Teenaged Von Neumann Device plays this essentially straight in Chapter 11, except for the line "If any should dare oppose it, let them feel the full weight of the empire upon them!" It's an alien wedding, after all.
• Played with in On This Winter's Night With You, a Bones fic showing Brennan and Booth getting married on Christmas. During the ceremony, Caroline Julian announces "If anyone here has any reason why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony... keep it to yourself, Cherie, 'cuz you ain't gonna stop this train."
• In The Private Diary of Elizabeth Quatermain, a wedding is broken up at precisely this moment. Played for Laughs in that the heroes arrive just a little too late for the line, so they get the minister to say it again in order to achieve the desired effect.
• The Lost Girl fic The Rest of Your Life initially subverts this. Lauren comes to Bo in the dressing room to try and convince her not to marry Dyson, but is shut down. When the priest says the line, its Bo herself who says she has a reason, namely she had just learned the extreme (and horrible) lengths Dyson went to to ensure Bo and Lauren didn't reconnect.
• REUNION (G-Go), a Kim Possible fanfic, has an interesting variation. Ten years after high school and six years after Ron disappeared from Kim's life, Kim is about to marry a guy named Ray Beam, who is secretly a villain trying to destroy both Kim and Ron. When Ron, now a costumed ninja hero named Ronin, returns to Kim's life, Beam frames him for his attacks on Kim. At the wedding ceremony, when the priest says those magic words, Wade (who had secretly been working as Ron's backup after the break-up of Team Possible) interrupts the ceremony. The fact that Wade, who was notoriously agoraphobic and seldom left his family's house, attends the ceremony to challenge Beam causes the priest to take him seriously.
• The Pokemon fic "The Power of One" sees Ash attempt this for Misty's wedding to Rudy after the reunion helps him realise his own feelings for Misty. He arrives too late to interrupt the wedding himself, but fortunately Rudy had already called the ceremony off as he realised that Misty loved Ash more than him, directly Ash to where Misty is waiting for him.
• Played for laughs twice in the Skyhold Academy Yearbook series. At the first wedding, when the President of Ferelden (who is officiating) says the line, Dorian stands up and gives everyone in attendance a mock glare, prompting giggles. At the second wedding, the officiant doesn't even finish the line — he gets halfway through saying it, then pauses and asks, "Surely there's no one here who's that foolish?"
• In Story of Three Boys Kurt, Puck, and Finn have been in a relationship for years, although it's been mostly secret, with only Kurt and Puck as the "official" couple. Eventually, Finn decides to marry Rachel, because that's what everyone (his mother in particular) expects. In a short AU within the AU, Puck and Kurt speak up during this part of Finn and Rachel's wedding, telling Finn that he doesn't have to marry her if he doesn't want to. Finn is all relieved, because he really thought he had to do it, and happily leaves with them in the middle of the ceremony. (In the fic's canon, Finn does marry Rachel and is miserable, in what is frequently referred to as "a farce of a wedding and a sham of a marriage".)
• When poor Zoro finds himself victim of an Accidental Proposal in chapter 28 from Thirty Tales of a Swordsman and is unable to wiggle his way out of the wedding, he's saved from marital bliss by Luffy, who claims to need Zoro for "adventure and stuff". The ceremony is immediately cancelled, to the village's great dismay.
• Total Drama All-Stars Rewrite: In the "My Big Fat Total Drama All-Stars Wedding" special, Blaineley barges into the ceremony to object to Geoff and Bridgette getting married, offering them a bribe of one million dollars to call off their wedding. Geoff takes the million dollars from her and gives it to the crowd of fans gathered outside instead.
• Twilight Storm sees Bella Swan join the Tenth Doctor in interrupting Sarah Jane's wedding. In a humourous addition to the Doctor's dramatic interruption, Bella then calls out that they're not related to Sarah, suddenly struck by an impulsive "fear" that people will think the Doctor is Sarah's boy-toy and Bella is their illegitimate daughter.
• In a Gargoyles fanfiction by Christine Morgan (appropriately titled "The Wedding"), Brooklyn suggests that the line be omitted on the grounds that their enemies shouldn't be given a cue to interrupt.
• In White Devil of the Moon, Miyuki Takamachi treats Jadeite's attack on Kyouya's wedding as one of these after the fact. Jadeite doesn't have any interest in the wedding — he's just trying to assassinate Nanoha, but the good guys fight back and all hell breaks loose. When it's over, Miyuki wipes her swords off on her ruined bridesmaid's dress and says, "Does anyone else have a reason why these two should not be wed?"
• In White Picket Fence, Red Skull interrupts Steve and Sharon's wedding at this precise moment purely for the sake of theatrics.

Films — Animated

• In Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, the mortal heroine Victoria chooses not to interrupt the marriage of Victor to the eponymous Corpse Bride, Emily, even though it will involve his death. It is Emily herself who stops the marriage; she is the Corpse Bride because her lover abandoned her, and she can't inflict that pain on another person.
• Disney Animated Canon:
  • Happens in The Little Mermaid, when Scuttle the seagull and friends interrupt the wedding of Eric and "Vanessa" (who is Ursula in disguise).
  • The Princess and the Frog: When the priest asks if "anyone objects to this union..." during Charlotte LaBouff's marriage to Naveen's impostor, the real Naveen, trapped in a box in frog form, tries screaming, "Me! Me! I object!" but to no avail. He and Ray are forced to become Wedding Smashers.
• In The Last: Naruto the Movie, Naruto, Shikamaru, Sakura, and Sai smash Toneri and Hinata's wedding on the Moon.
• In The Princess and the Pea, Sebastian and Fearless interrupt Rollo and Hildegard's wedding to prove that Hildegard isn't Heath's real daughter and, thus, not the real princess.
• The climactic scene of Rugrats in Paris has such a wedding, coupled with a Big "NO!" which also happens to be Chuckie's first word. Not that you could blame him.
• Spoofed in the first Shrek movie. Shrek goes to interrupt the wedding of Fiona and Farquaad, but Donkey tells him to wait for the priest to say his "speak now or forever hold your peace" bit before before barging in and shouting "I object!". On further investigation, they find they missed that part, so Shrek barges in anyway.

Films — Live-Action

• Subverted in Atonement: Briony does not speak up, realizing it would be futile.
• In the Disney version of Babes in Toyland, Barnaby shrinks Mary Contrary's beau, Tom Piper, with a shrinking gun to force her to marry him, lest he uses the gun a second time to shrink Tom away forever. Fearing for Tom's safety, Mary complies, but as the wedding progresses, Tom sneaks away and assembles an army of toy soldiers to fight back. Then, right at the moment where the Toymaker, forced to act as parson (but drawing it out as long as he can when he sees what Tom is up to), asks if anyone objects, Tom and the toy soldiers launch their attack on Barnaby.
• Played with in The Baxter, which actually starts with this scene: Caroline is about to wed her perennial Romantic Runner-Up fiance Elliott when her ex-boyfriend bursts in, ready to win her back. He does, of course, but the movie isn't really about them.
• Subverted in Big Trouble in Little China, wherein the heroes find themselves forced to stand by and allow Lo Pan to marry their girlfriends, because it is only after doing so that the villain will become mortal, and thus killable.
• In The Best Man, Olly rushes across London to get to his beloved's wedding before she marries Olly's best friend (who turns out to be a cad) in time for The Words — and he might have, too, except that he shows up at the wrong quainte olde church. Fortunately his roommate, played by Seth Green, is at the real wedding and is able to stall the ceremony until Olly can get there.
• The Black Room: Done by a dog, no less, who attacks his supposed master, stopping his wedding. And exposing the groom as an impostor when he drops his Obfuscating Disability to fight the dog off.
• Bubble Boy is about a guy who's lived in a bubble his whole life traveling across the country to stop the wedding of the Girl Next Door, who he finally realized loves him.
• In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Lo very vehemently disagrees about Jen's loveless marriage to a man of her parents' choosing.
• In the 1980 Flash Gordon, Flash objects to Ming's forcibly marrying Dale by impaling him with a war rocket he's crashing into the capital of Mongo. Dale herself also objects to the proceedings ("I do not!")
• Played mostly straight in Four Weddings and a Funeral, except that the "speaker" is the only one in the room who can't actually speak, because he's the groom's deaf-mute brother and best man, who forces the groom to interpret his sign language because no one else can. But it's subverted at one point earlier in the film; at Carrie's wedding, Charles comes in right after the preacher says the line, but since he's just late as usual, he has no idea, and the wedding goes through as planned.
• Tim from Fragment of Fear has been warned that the conspiracy will hurt his bride Juliet if he doesn't back off from the investigation. During their wedding, he keeps thinking different guests are going to attack her. When the priest says, "Speak now or forever hold your peace," Tim says, "I think I'm going mad," and drags Juliet out of the church.
• The Graduate has an attempt at such an objection which is so iconic as to be a trope in and of itself, with the objector banging on the church window screaming the bride's name. Note that it's an attempt — he technically shows up after the peace has been held and the bride and groom have been pronounced man and wife, but she decides to run off with the objector anyway.
• In The Guru, not one but two men interrupt Sharonna and Rusty's wedding: Ramu has come for the bride, and Randy has come for the groom. Ramu also arrived too early and had to stand around with everyone staring at him until the priest reached the relevant point in the ceremony.
• In A Guy Thing, the substitute priest (the groom's neighbor, who mistakenly believes him to be a pervert) says this phrase in a pleading manner, then continues to elaborate that the reason doesn't even have to be good, then gives the guests a minute to think about it. Finally, it's the groom who ends up speaking up and explaining why he wants to call it off. The bride gets a consolation prize — the groom's brother, who's been in love with her for years, and the groom chases down the bride's cousin, whom he realizes is more his type.
• This occurs in the climax to Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. All the standard clichés apply, of course.
• In The Infiltrator (2016), the FBI arrange a fake wedding between the two protagonists (actually undercover FBI agents) to get all the criminals in one place so they can be arrested. They even video the "wedding" for PR reasons. Naturally, they choose this moment to make a Dynamic Entry and arrest everyone.
• In Kill Bill, when surveying the Massacre at Two Pines:
  Earl McGraw: It would appear someone objected to this union and wasn't able to hold their peace.
• In Live and Let Die, a fancy outdoor wedding on the bayou gets to this point in the ceremony, and on cue, James Bond and his pursuers plow through on speedboats, cutting across the grounds and obliterating the wedding cake and caterer's tent. The bride is disconcerted.
• In The Lonely Guy, Steve Martin's character gives a long and impassioned speech about why his one true love shouldn't get married, only to find out that it's the wrong chapel and he's too late to stop the right wedding. However, for what it's worth, his speech does convince the other bride not to go through with it.
• Subverted in Mambo Italiano: Gay protagonist Angelo's boyfriend Nino is in the closet, which had put a strain on the relationship before Nino was browbeaten into marrying a woman. As the wedding begins, we see Angelo make up his mind and purposefully get in his car. Then, at the "forever hold your peace" bit, the church door bangs open. But it's just a late arrival ("Scusate! Scusate!"). Angelo, on the other hand, has gone off to hook up with the nice guy from his volunteer job.
• In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Lancelot receives a note from someone begging for rescue from an Arranged Marriage. He slaughters an entire castle's worth of wedding guests before he realizes that the one who sent the note is the groom.
• Subverted in The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life Of Ethan Green, in which the gay title character tries to stop the wedding/commitment ceremony of his ex-boyfriend and the ex-boyfriend's new, villainous "Log Cabin Republican" partner. The big, climactic "running in to interrupt the wedding" scene actually doesn't pay off, but Ethan and his ex do end up getting back together eventually.
• Played mostly straight in A Night at the Roxbury, where the groom's brother interrupts the wedding with a boombox held high, in homage to Say Anything.
• In Norbit, the ceremony between Kate and Dion is interrupted by Norbit, who has been trying to outrun Rasputia in her car. He admits his love for her, and reveals Dion's plan to marry Kate just for her money.
• Poor Pretty Eddie: At the wedding, Justice of the Peace Floyd says, "First, it's a custom! I'm forced to ask if there's any objection from them down to December here! Well, I assumes, with all this free beer and good food, that you men folks is willing to hold your goddamn peace!" Then Bertha bursts into the room in a wedding gown, screaming, "Stop it! You get outta here, you assholes! It's my house! If anybody's gonna start getting married around here, it's gonna be me!"
• Robin Hood: Men in Tights, being a Robin Hood pastiche, did it very similarly to Prince of Thieves, but funnier. The Sheriff of Rottingham forces Marian to marry him by holding Robin captive on a gallows with a noose around his neck, so everyone's too scared to object. As Marian's about to say "I do" (but very reluctantly), Achoo shoots the rope, and Marian's "I do" quickly becomes "I doooooo not!" Then, when Marian and Robin get married, King Richard turns up and objects^note "Who asked?", on the grounds that as King, he's allowed to kiss the bride first. And boy, does he.
  Rabbi Tuckman: It's good to be the King.
• Subverted in two different ways in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Robin stops Marian's forced marriage to the Sheriff just before they kiss. Then later, King Richard (portrayed by the uncredited Sean Connery) objects to Robin and Marian's wedding, but only because he wants to do it over so he can give the bride away.
• In Saving Face, Wilhelmina breaks up her mother's wedding because her mother is in love with someone else.
• In Spaceballs, Lone Star arrives Just in Time to prevent Vespa from marrying Prince Valium, revealing that he's just discovered he's a genuine prince and can marry Vespa instead. Because of this, Valium doesn't seem to object too much himself (and he's probably too sleepy to care anyway).
• Played with in Three Men and a Little Lady: The apparently senile vicar reaches this part and asks the question multiple times, and almost confuses someone's hat moving as an objection. Nevertheless, he continues, and the marriage happens. Two of the three eponymous men finally prove to the woman what her husband's real plans are, but only after it's apparently too late — or so it seems, as the vicar then removes his makeup and costume to reveal he is the third man in disguise, therefore revealing his earlier stunt (and his performance during the wedding in general) as a means to buy time — and also void the marriage.
• Spoofed in Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie: Divatox wants to marry the demon Maligore, and tells anyone who objects to shuddup before she even busts him out of his prison. She starts having second thoughts herself once she gets a good look at him.
• At the end of Promising Young Woman, Al's Karma Houdini Warranty kicks in during his wedding, when the police show up to arrest him for raping Nina and murdering Cassie.
• In Wayne's World 2, Wayne re-enacts the famous scene from The Graduate, only to discover that he's in the wrong church. And then he steps outside to discover an identical church across the street. And then he goes in there and does the whole thing over again. At least this time, he's in the right place.
• Played with in Wedding Crashers (natch): John does interrupt a wedding at the climax, but he has no objection to the marriage. He's just in love with the bride's sister, and it's his only chance to talk to her.
• We're in the Money: At the climax, Carter has decided to avoid a Breach of Promise of Marriage judgment by simply marrying Claire, the Gold Digger who was suing him. Just as the justice of the peace is delivering this line, Ginger comes charging in with proof that the evidence that was going to win Claire the suit, an incriminating photo, was faked. This frees Carter to marry Ginger instead.
• Exaggerated Played for Laughs in While You Were Sleeping, in which the main character, having been pretending to be the fiancé of a man in a coma in order to spare the feelings of his family, is now in the chapel about to be married to him, when she's in fact fallen in love with his brother. She doesn't even let the priest get past "Dearly beloved..." before she raises an objection. And then the brother, who is the best man, feels he must also object. And then the groom's real fiancée storms in and objects. And then her husband objects to her objection...
  Priest: I didn't get to that part yet.
• In Who's That Girl, Nikki Finn interrupts the wedding of Louden Trott and Wendy Worthington at that point to reveal that (a) Simon Worthington is a criminal who had Nikki's boyfriend murdered and her framed for it, and (b) Nikki and Louden are in love with each other.

Jokes

• A family is preparing to drive off for a vacation. The dad tells his crew "Anyone who has to go to the bathroom, speak now or forever hold your piss."

Literature

• The Action Hero's Handbook gives very practical advice about how to do it (having a prepared speech and a getaway vehicle ready helps heaps, as well as notes of apology and money so you can pay for having ruined a wedding). It also advises you to avoid doing it during the famous line, since emotions will be running quite high at that point.
• In Teresa Edgerton's The Castle of the Silver Wheel, Prince Tryffin learns that his very young cousin Gwenlliant is being forced into an Arranged Marriage, and interrupts the ceremony to allow her to claim that they have a Childhood Marriage Promise (which in their church constitutes a precontract, and thus is a legal impediment to any other marriage if it isn't dealt with). He also tells the groom — a man notorious for abusing all three of his previous wives as well as his mistresses — that the man is lucky; if the marriage had gone through, Tryffin would have killed him.
• Heralds of Valdemar: Present in Hawkbrother weddings, but apparently the wedding party has the right to reject the objection.
  "These two wish to join together in sight of our clans ... If there be any here who object to this joining, give tongue that we may hear and consider what you have to say."
• In Jeffrey Archer's Hidden in Plain Sight, the villain tries disrupts the hero's wedding by claiming that the hero is having an affair with his estranged wife. Since said estranged wife is an invited guest at the wedding and so is on hand to deny this, the vicar has the villain thrown out of the church, and proceeds with the wedding.
• Nodded at in Pamela Dean's The Hidden Land, especially given that there's a damn good reason why it shouldn't proceed, but no one speaks up:
  Fence: If any wight knoweth any reason why this coronation should not proceed, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.
• In Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Jane lampshades the absurdity of the phrase, claiming that no one ever really says anything — only for Richard Mason to turn up and object, for the very good reason that Rochester is already married to Mason's sister Bertha, except she's gone insane and Rochester has had her imprisoned in his attic.
• In Stephanie Burgis's A Tangle of Magicks from Kat, Incorrigible, Mrs. Carlyle breaks into the opening wedding to declare that her son is underage and can not marry without her permission. Even the revelation that this is not his wedding — he's just the best man — doesn't do much to stop her.
• Phone Home, Persephone! has Hades and Persephone's first attempt at getting married get interrupted by his Uncle Shiner and Hades' mother, Rhea.
• In Burrough's first Barsoom novel A Princess of Mars, the line itself doesn't really show up, but the incomparable Dejah Thoris is about to be married to Sab Than, prince of a rival nation, when a certain grey-eyed Virginian and his friends show up and object rather strenuously, to the extent that the prince becomes king — about a half-second before the royal line dies out completely.
• In the seventh Safehold novel, Like a Mighty Army, this line is used at the wedding of Hektor and Irys. Three paragraphs later, a suicide bomber blows up the wedding reception. Bride and groom survive, 200 innocent bystanders don't.
• In The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson, the butler, Proom, stages an elaborate charade in order to encourage a third party to step up and protest at a wedding, because the groom is too honorable to jilt his bride even though everyone, himself included, knows that she's totally horrible and will make his life miserable. When the man finally shouts out "No! This wedding must not be!" we get this memorable line:
  In her pew, the dowager, who had read Jane Eyre no less than seven times, shook her head in disbelief.
• Lampshaded in A Song of Ice and Fire: Though the actual wedding ceremonies use a different set of vows, when she is parading towards a ceremony to enter into a political marriage, Daenerys thinks that if this were a story, Daario Naharis would swoop in and grab her right now. He doesn't, and the marriage goes ahead exactly as planned.
• A Sweet Valley High novel had Jessica falling in love with the fiancé of a family friend, ignoring her sister's warnings about how wrong the situation was. Jessica speaks up at the wedding, ruining everything.
• At the end of The Tamuli, Zalasta crashes the wedding shouting that he forbids it to happen. It's not clear whether this objection was allowed in any of the religions represented at the wedding. Zalasta certainly isn't counting on it, as he goes straight to trying to kill the bridegroom.
• In Empire of Ivory from Temeraire, we have a very narrow aversion played for comedy. When the ship's chaplain gets to the phrase in question, a 15 tonne dragon with acid spray that could trivially sink the boat leans in to ask "Mayn't I?" The bride, who had raised said dragon from hatching, simply looked up and said "No, you may not!" The dragon just sighs and threatens to chuck the groom overboard if he is unpleasant to his new wife.
• Charlotte's sister Anne mentions the same trope in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: When Gilbert Markham hears a rumor that Helen has been widowed and is getting remarried, he instantly packs up and leaves town, walking the final six miles when he can't find any transportation, intending to burst into the church and interrupt the ceremony if he has to. Fortunately, it's Helen's brother who's actually getting married.
• Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair from Thursday Next features the somewhat unique example of a marriage being interrupted by a person who doesn't exist; the man whom the main character is in love with is about to be married when Mr. Briggs, the lawyer from Jane Eyre, arrives to declare the existence of an impediment, with almost exactly the same wording as in the book, except for the fact that the impediment exists in the form of the bride's still-alive husband.
• Played for Laughs in a Tom Sharpe novel: the groom has been driven insane through the course of the novel, and hypnotised by his psychiatrist (the bride-to-be) so that the wedding can take place successfully — he can pretty much stand up, smile and say "I do", so they assume the wedding is pretty much fool-proof. That is, until the priest asks if anyone knows of any reason that it couldn't take place.
• Done twice in the Wicked! books by Paul Jennings and Morris Gleitzman. In the first chapter, Dawn gets up at her dad's wedding to protest, based on the fact that she and her future step-brother Rory can't stand each other. She then runs out of the church and the wedding goes ahead without her. In the last chapter, Jack and Eileen get married again, but Jack interrupts at that point to take the time to thank Dawn and Rory for everything they did to stop the virus that nearly killed them all.

Live-Action TV

• In the sixth season finale of 30 Rock, Liz lives in fear of this trope befalling the renewal of vows between Jack and Avery, which she is officiating. After several guests ask about the "speak now" bit, she tries to get through it as quickly as possible. In the end, nobody interrupts, prompting the not-so-happy couple to deride all the guests as cowards, since the renewal was a fairly obvious last-ditch attempt to patch up their doomed marriage.
• Agatha Raisin: In "Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage", Agatha's wedding to James has just reached this point when the ceremony is interrupted by Bill bursting in with Agatha's husband, whom she thought was dead.
• All My Children's Edmund bursts into Tad and Brooke's wedding right at this point — by mistake. Thanks to a case of mistaken identity, he thinks Tad has been injured in an accident and has rushed to the church to tell Brooke. Unfortunately, the timing makes him look like a crazy ex who can't let go.
• In Amen, Thelma not only turns around and glares at everyone, she then walks up and down the aisle to ensure that no one interrupts.
• Awkwafina is Nora from Queens: When Nora's father, Wally, marries his Love Interest, Brenda, their wedding gets interrupted by Chuck, Brenda's son from a previous marriage, who declares his love to Nora.
• In Batman (1966), Villain of the Week Marsha tries to force Batman into marrying her so she can have access to the Batcave (and the diamonds powering the Bat-Computer). Fortunately, Alfred and Aunt Harriet burst in with forged papers claiming Batman is already married to Harriet.
• In the Blackadder episode "The Queen of Spain's Beard", Edmund, trying to avoid having to marry the Spanish Infanta, hurriedly tries to find someone else to marry, only for his hastily arranged bride-to-be's husband to turn up and object.
• Bones:
  • Someone interrupts the wedding of Angela and Hodgins. As it turns out, Angela was already married.
  • Booth and Brennan's wedding plays with it. Aldo starts the line, then replaces the "speak now" part with "keep it to yourself".
• Broad City: Just as the dog wedding in "The Matrix" is getting to this point, Ilana appears, shouting, "Stop the wedding!" She has everyone put the wedding on hold while they look for Abbi, who has the dogs' wedding rings.
• Discussed and defied in Brooklyn Nine-Nine at the wedding of Jake and Amy. The bride's ex-boyfriend, who still clearly nurses a torch for her, has found himself part of events and, in order to atone for various misdeeds, has agreed to help out... but hopefully asks when they'll be including this clause as part of the ceremony. When coldly informed that they've decided to remove it, he cheerfully replies, "You've outsmarted me! Congratulations!"
• Subverted in Californication, where Hank, having spent the whole season trying to convince his ex to choose him over Bill, not only doesn't object at the wedding, but tries to stop Bill's daughter when she objects.
• Charmed:
  • In the episode "A Paige from the Past", Piper bursts into a church to object to the marriage of Phoebe and Cole (or rather Lulu and Frankie, the ghosts possessing them), who are holding a priest at gunpoint to force him to marry them. The priest protests that he didn't get to say the line.
  • In "House Call", when a witch doctor curses the sisters to succumb to their petty desires, Paige becomes obsessed with her longtime Friend with Benefits Glen who had just unexpectedly told her he was engaged right when she was ready to take things serious with him. She abducts the bride before the ceremony and uses magic to impersonate her. Leo rescues the bride and crashes the wedding, explaining to the confused priest that they're twin sisters.
• A pretty depressing example happens in Cheaters, a show dedicated to uncovering infidelities. Jamie, a divorced mother with a kid, was dating some dude named Michael for years, and it turned out that not only he was cheating on her, but was about to get married to another girl, who had no idea what was going on. So they crashed the wedding to reveal this right before the marriage itself, and not only does Jamie totally call out Michael for being a Jerkass scumbag, but she also has to comfort the weeping bride.
• Cheers: Parodied when Lilith's controlling mother comes into town and demands she and Frasier recreate their wedding just for her. Turns out she's eagerly waiting for this part of the ceremony, and has written a long speech on the subject.
  • And once before. After Frasier’s failed first date with Lilith, Sam sets him up with a woman who convinces Frasier to get married in the bar the next day. And it’s his own ex-fiancee Diane who objects.
    Priest: If there is any person present who knows a reason why this couple shouldn't be united, speak now or forever hold your peace.
    Diane: I do.
    Frasier: Right phrase, wrong wedding.
• Done in a sketch for Comic Relief 2013: As Simon Cowell is in the middle of marrying a mystery bride, his fellow male X-Factor judges begin to burst through the door, wearing wedding dresses, to declare their love. Their fight over who gets to marry Simon turns into the entire room declaring their love for him, until the priest has to silence them all to continue the ceremony. They finish the wedding with the intended bride, he lifts up the veil, and it's Simon Cowell.
• Coronation Street plays with this trope: At Peter Barlow's wedding to Shelly Unwin, there was no problem getting to the altar, except for that fact that Peter was already married and had just had a baby with someone else. It was set up to look like either Peter's troublemaker little sister Tracy or his best man and old friend Kieran would spill the beans, as both had known about this for ages, or his wife who had just happened to walk by with the baby would interrupt. The Friday episode ended almost on this line exactly. However, on Monday no one said anything, and the baby starting fussing, forcing Lucy to leave.
• Crisis on Earth-X:
  • No one objects to Barry and Iris' wedding, but the ceremony is attacked by Earth-X Nazis hoping to take out Earth's heroes. Overgirl even executes the preacher right after he says the line, no less.
    Overgirl: Peace is overrated.
  • At the end, a low-key wedding for Barry and Iris is held with Diggle as the preacher. Once again, the wedding is interrupted, but this time by Felicity, who has decided to marry Oliver after all and insists to be married off as well. At someone else's wedding.
• On CSI: NY, Mac once interrupted a wedding because the groom's suit had been contaminated with toxic chemicals. Unlike most examples, the ceremony is implied to resume as soon as the groom has changed clothes and been checked over by the EMTs. Three guesses which line the minister had just uttered when Mac interrupts.
• In Dallas, when J.R. and Sue Ellen are getting re-married and the minister says the line, Sue Ellen's ex-lover and J.R.'s business rival Cliff Barns stands up and opens his mouth. This is the end of the episode. The next episode shows him closing his mouth and walking out. Talk about a cliffhanger!
• Doubly invoked in The Dead Zone episode "Speak Now": first to inform the bride and groom that according to Johnny's visions the bride's beloved previous fiancé is not dead, but a prisoner of war; and then a second time when the bride and groom themselves call off the ceremony, having realized that they can't go through with while that situation is unresolved.
• Subverted in A Different World: As Whitley prepares to marry Byron, Dwayne walks in just as the minister is reciting the line. He's about to speak, but thinks better of it and sits. However, when the time comes for Whitley to recite her vows, she freezes. Seeing her uncertainty, it is then that Dwayne leaps up, declares his love for her, and begs her to marry him instead of Byron.
• The Dukes of Hazzard: "Daisy's Shotgun Wedding" features a literal Shotgun Wedding, as Daisy has been kidnapped by a backwoods, sociopathic family with the intent of forcing her to marry the most brutal member of the family. Shortly after the preacher delivers the cue line and actually begins to proceed with the ceremony when no one objects (except for Daisy), Bo and Luke (along with Rosco and Boss Hogg) arrive to stop the wedding and rescue Daisy.
• In the Doctor Who spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures' serial "The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith", the registrar's reading of the words ("Now, I have to ask this...") is almost drowned out by a strange wheezing, groaning noise. In what would be a shocking cliffhanger if it hadn't been heavily hyped beforehand, the Tenth Doctor himself bursts through the door, having realised that Sarah Jane was under hypnosis (again) and the wedding was being manipulated by the Trickster.
• Lady Edith in Downton Abbey's third series is jilted at the altar by her husband-to-be, who has second thoughts on whether their May–December Romance will last.
• In Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Horace and Myra are getting married, and just as the Reverend reaches this part of the ceremony, Hank walks in. Everyone thinks he's in love with Myra and stares at him, but he just waves the Reverend to continue.
• In Earth 2, Yale has no patience for this when officiating the (re)marriage of Bess and Morgan:
  Yale: If anyone has any reason why these two should not be wed, keep it to yourself or deal with me.
• Played with in EastEnders during the wedding of Phil and Stella. Phil's son Ben, who's being physically abused by Stella, chooses this line to stand up... but only to ask for help, because he's bleeding through his shirt. The wedding is nonetheless halted while Ben is seen to, and when Phil finds out who inflicted those wounds on his son... suffice it to say that the wedding does not resume.
• In Eureka, Carter briefly objects at his own wedding. He wants to make sure that Allison is really marrying him because she wants to and not just because they're a minute away from drowning.
• In Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray's brother Robert is about to wed his longtime girlfriend Amy when the priest asks if anyone objects. Robert's mother Marie stands, much to everyone's horror. The kicker is that Marie actually likes Amy (much more than Ray's wife Debra) and has been pushing Robert to marry her for years. She declares that she may have been wrong to put so much pressure on them. Unfortunately, she chooses that moment to say so, basically ruining their day. It may have been the moment when the character crossed the Moral Event Horizon from Helicopter Parents to Evil Matriarch.
• In Farscape, during John and Katralla's wedding in the "Look at the Princess" arc, the officiant (who also happens to be the Empress and mother of the bride) recites the line, "Should any one among you feel cause to sway the will of love, to question the ability, the sincerity, or the destiny of this union, rise now, and be heard." There are plenty of people, John included, who object to the marriage, but no one speaks up. That's fortunate, because the Empress's tone of voice makes it clear that objections are not welcome.
• Father Brown: In "The Missing Man", a pilot returns from the dead after eight years, as Father Brown is about to marry his wife to his brother, entering the church as Father Brown speaks these words.
• Friends:
  • Rachel, having realised she still has feelings for Ross, rushes off to stop him from marrying Emily. She ends up arriving shortly before the ceremony, and on seeing Ross and Emily together realises she can't do it. She claims she just changed her mind about the skipping the wedding and offers Ross her congratulations. Once the ceremony starts, the minister never asks for objections.
  • Joey was supposed to officiate Monica and Chandler's wedding, but a work emergency meant they had to get a replacement. When the replacement starts saying the line, Joey bursts in and objects — because he wants to ask for objections.
    Joey: Hey! That's my line!
• In the third season finale of Gavin & Stacey, this gets quadruple-subverted at Nessa and Dave's wedding. The vicar does the standard speech and no one says anything. He says "That's always a tense moment". Then Smithy shows up. He tries to persuade Nessa not to marry Dave but she says she loves him. Then Dave persuades her that she really doesn't and just wants a father for Neil the Baby.
• A particularly notable example was in General Hospital where Laura's ex-husband Scotty shows up to catch the bouquet at her wedding to Luke to protest the marriage long after the vows have been said. Guess something about his wife leaving him for her rapist must really bother him.
• Get Smart has Max marrying a KAOS Femme Fatale. It's a fake wedding — the Chief is officiating so it won't be legal — but this doesn't stop a very pregnant and jealous 99's loud disruptive sobbing through the ceremony. The Chief gets to the "hold your peace" line, getting ready for the worst, Max rolls his eyes and looks back at her, everyone in the congregation turns around to look at her... and she just groans, waving them off.
• The Golden Girls:
  • "Stan Takes a Wife" plays with the trope: Dorothy's ex-husband Stan plans on marrying a third wife, much to Dorothy's pleasure, as she thinks she'll finally be rid of him. However, the wedding plans are interrupted when Sophia gets sick and needs to go to the hospital, so Dorothy stays with her instead. Stan shows up, stays the night with a frantic Dorothy, and shows some newfound assertiveness in the process. Dorothy is so touched that when the wedding actually takes place, she plans to object so that she can stay with him. But just before the wedding, she has a chance encounter with the bride, who doesn't know who Dorothy is but confides in her how much she loves Stan and how scared she is that she won't measure up to his first wife, whom he apparently talks about all the time. Dorothy realizes how selfish she's being and offers to escort her to the ceremony, remarking that she has a feeling they'll see each other again very soon.
  • The Grand Finale has Dorothy marrying Blanche's Uncle Lucas. Stan picks her up in a limo without revealing himself, then pulls the car over on the wrong street and shows her that it's him — but he's not planning to object. He just wants a few moments alone to tell her that he wishes her all the best, and that the limo drive is his wedding gift to the mother of his children. During the ceremony itself, the priest says the line and the camera cuts to Stan, who just smiles sadly and remains silent. Deep down, he just wants Dorothy to be happy.
• On The Good Place, Janet asks this question during her wedding to Jason, which she is also officiating. Eleanor and Tahani, who are the only two guests, both object on the grounds that the entire idea is absurd. Janet overrules them.
• In the Season 10 mid-season finale of Grey's Anatomy, April is on the altar, marrying her EMT boyfriend Matthew. Everyone responds affirmatively to the minister's question, "Will you promise to love and support their marriage in all the days to come?". Everyone, that is, except Jackson, who apologizes to his girlfriend Stephanie, and then stands up... only to stand there in silence, and then sit back down. The minister continues, only for Jackson to stand up again, beginning a heartfelt pouring out of his feelings with, "I love you, April." Jackson ends his speech by asking if April loves him, too. Cue shots of many of their colleagues' faces, and April standing trying to make a decision. It took a good ten months until this was resolved, and it turns out that April and Jackson did run off together to Tahoe and secretly eloped.
• Double Subverted on Home and Away, when Dan and Leah's mothers successfully stop their elopement, but not until after they've run into one wrong church.
• Hot in Cleveland: In the season 2 finale "Elka's Wedding", as Elka prepares to marry her boyfriend Fred, the line isn't actually said, but several men end up objecting anyway because they want to marry her... and then another voice speaks up: "She's not gonna marry any of you losers. She's already married, to me." It turns out to be Elka's thought-dead husband Bobby.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • When Lily is getting ready to marry Marshall, her ex-boyfriend Scooter asks when in the ceremony people will be invited to object to the union. When told that weddings don't really do that part anymore, he decides that gives him license to object at any point in the ceremony he wants.
  • Stella's ex-fiancé, Tony, does the same thing in the movie version of Ted and Stella's wedding. In real life, Tony talked to Stella before the wedding, but because it was a movie...
• Jessie:
  • Creepy Connie says this line when she pretends to marry herself and Luke using a hand puppet as a minister. Jessie, Luke, Ravi, and Mackenzie all object... only to have their mouths taped shut by Connie afterwards.
  • Subverted during Jessie's and Brooks's wedding. When Tony, who is performing the ceremony, asks this question, Mrs. Chesterfield tries to raise her hand, only to be restrained by Bertram. Eventually, it becomes Double Subverted when it's time for Jessie to say her vow; she proclaims "I don't," rejecting the marriage herself.
• At the end of Joe Schmo 2, the second season of The Joe Schmo Show, when Austin Newton-Rice and Piper Davidson decide to renew their commitment to each other, host Derek Newcastle ("Ralph Garman") suggests that he marry them right then and there on national television. He gets as far as this bit when Bryce, who was eliminated from the show for killing the falcon Montecore, bursts in to say that he can't marry them because they're both actors and so is everyone else on the show, including himself, except for the two chosen schmoes.
• Parodied in The King of Queens: The priest gives the line, and Spence is about to object on the grounds he still loves the bride... only for someone else to stand up and do so before he does.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: In "Dearly Beloved", the line is followed by a woman standing up and accusing the groom of raping her.
• In Lois & Clark, Perry and Inspector Henderson burst in and prevent the wedding of Lex and Lois, playing the trope completely straight like the Big Damn Heroes they are.
• Played for Laughs in the premiere of Lucifer (2016): Lucifer turns up at the wedding of a Hollywood record producer and a supermodel and causes the usual chaos, especially after using his truth telling powers to make the bride admit she'd really prefer to sleep with him instead.
  Priest: If there is anyone here that would oppose this holy union, speak now or forever hold your peace.
  Lucifer: Excuse me. Yeah, I have a problem. Has anyone else noticed how incredibly, jaw-droppingly, loin-stirringly beautiful this young woman is and how short, sweaty and altogether fugly this homunculus is? I mean, what is this, a wedding or a kidnapping?
• Subverted in M*A*S*H during Margaret's wedding. Father Mulcahy gets to that line and everyone present (including Margaret) turns to Frank, who was Margaret's lover for the past few seasons. Frank shifts awkwardly and replies, "Well, I'm not going to say anything!"
• The same thing happens to Melrose Place's Allison, having found out that ex-lover Billy's fiancée Brooke is a lying schemer. Unfortunately, Billy is so caught up in Brooke's lies that Allison is the one who comes across like the villain.
• Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Finster says the line when he officiates Rita and Zedd's wedding. Goldar tries to say something, but Rita hits him with her staff.
• Parodied in the Grand Finale of Miranda (2009): A message on Gary's answering machine leads Miranda to believe that he and romantic rival Jacinta are getting married. She frantically rushes to the venue to stop the wedding, arriving at just the right moment... only to find out Gary is merely the best man, and Jacinta isn't even present.
• Monk plays with the trope a lot. Monk, murder, and weddings tend to go in hand:
  • In "Mr. Monk and the Wrong Man," Monk interrupts the wedding of ex-con Max Barton's ex-wife Sherry to convince her to take Max back. Then, when Monk figures out that Barton had been guilty of the double murder he was originally convicted of and killed the partner who helped him with those murders, he interrupts the remarriage to arrest Max.
  • In "Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding," Monk and Captain Stottlemeyer are roped into attending Natalie's brother Jonathan's wedding after someone tries to kill Randy by running him over with a car in the hotel parking lot. To find the culprit, Stottlemeyer goes undercover as a photographer and takes photos of the guests. Then the body of the photographer who failed to show up is discovered dead in a mud bath. Monk soon realizes that the woman Natalie's brother is marrying is in fact a black widow, which causes an incident where he gets a knife held to his throat.
  • In the Tie-In Novel Mr Monk Goes To Hawaii, Natalie's close friend Candace is getting married in Hawaii, and she gets invited to be maid of honor. Unfortunately for Natalie, any hope she has of spending a quiet week is dashed when Monk takes Dioxynl to follow her on the flight to Kauai. When Candace's wedding happens the next day, Monk crashes the party and exposes Candace's groom-to-be as a bigamist. Candace storms away when she realizes that Monk's deductions are true, triggering a Humiliation Conga for her fiancé. Then a body is found nearby, and Monk and Natalie are forced to stay in Hawaii on a Busman's Holiday.
• Parodied by Monty Python's Flying Circus in "Scotsman on a Horse", a dialogue-free sketch in which a wedding is interrupted by the eponymous Scotsman entering the chapel, walking down the aisle, and without missing a beat, carrying off... the groom.
• Played with in the Murder, She Wrote episode "Something Borrowed, Someone Blue": After so much has happened to delay, spoil, and otherwise interfere with Grady and Donna's wedding, when the priest says the line, everyone holds their breath for a moment, wondering what's going to happen now. Nobody interrupts, and the episode ends with Jessica giving a sigh of relief that the wedding is finally completed.
• The Season Finale of Season 15 of Murdoch Mysteries ends with Crabtree and Effie's wedding. When the minister gets to this bit, the church doors burst open, and both bride and groom react with astonishment to the unseen arrival. End of season cliffhanger!
• Subverted in The Nanny: During Fran's wedding, the priest says the line, but Sylvia simply glares at everyone present as a warning of what will happen if anyone objects.
• Played straight with Paul and Rebecca's first wedding on Neighbours: Lyn arrives at the right moment to reveal that she and Paul are still legally married.
• In The Odd Couple (1970), episode "Being Divorced Is Never Having To Say I Do", Oscar is elated when his ex-wife, Blanche, decides to remarry, as it means he'll no longer have to pay alimony. However, when the minister says the line during the ceremony, Felix objects, because he feels Blanche is marrying the wrong man. Blanche agrees, and the wedding is off. The next scene shows the angrily brooding Oscar, at home later that day, playing a recording of the wedding on his turntable, and lifting the needle to hear Felix's "I object" over and over. Then Felix comes home from the church.
  Felix: I stayed for the funeral.
  Oscar: What'd you do, stand up in the middle and say he wasn't dead?
  • If that wasn't enough, they try the wedding again, and this time Oscar objects after the line is said.
• One Life to Live:
  • Patrick walks into the church just as the minister says the line, but doesn't say anything, hoping that Marty will decide on him for herself. She doesn't.
  • At Max and Luna's wedding, both of them expect someone to object, as in true Soap Opera style they had faced numerous obstacles just getting to that point. Both of them look around at this point, and Max even looks up.
• Our Miss Brooks: It happens multiple times in the first (television) season finale, "June Bride". Miss Brooks is acting as proxy for French teacher Monsieur Leblanc's French bride. Unfortunately, some Exact Eavesdropping by Walter Denton leads to him thinking that Miss Brooks is actually going to be the bride. Denton tells Miss Brooks's landlady Mrs. Davis, his girlfriend Harriet Conklin, her father the principal of the school, and Miss Brooks's actual Love Interest Mr. Boynton. Miss Brooks manages to straighten out Mrs. Davis before the ceremony. But the wedding is then stopped by Mr. Conklin and his daughter Harriet. Mr. Conklin does not want to replace Miss Brooks next term, and Harriet is a Shipper on Deck for Miss Brooks. They're corrected, the wedding goes on ahead. Then Walter Denton interrupts the wedding. He's made to sit down. Mr. Boynton finally arrives, confused (he had a date with Miss Brooks to go square dancing), to interrupt the wedding. Finally, the proxy wedding is forestalled for good when the telegraph delivery boy arrives with the message that the actual bride has just married another man.
• On Party Down, during Constance's wedding, it happens twice in a row. First her ex-boyfriend shows up claiming he still loves her and came after he got her message, which she left after drunk-dialing him a few days earlier. Then, once he's gone, Ron stands up and objects to an entirely different marriage, since his Love Interest Danielle and her fiancé are at the ceremony too. Constance insists that he go on with his objection anyway.
• Subverted in Peep Show, where Mark, desperate to get out of marrying Sophie, actually looks hopefully around the church for someone to come up with a reason. No one does.
• In the season two finale of Person of Interest, a wedding is crashed by an ex of the bride trying to invoke If I Can't Have You…. Reese pulls up in a stolen sports car, shoots the wedding crasher in the back, congratulates the couple, and drives off.
• Neatly used in an episode of Psych: Shawn's objection has nothing to do with why the bride and groom should not be married, but it's the only opportunity he has to do The Summation and reveal how the maid-of-honour committed the crime.
• Played for laughs in Queer as Folk (US), when Michael and Ben get married, as Brian is notoriously anti-marriage:
  Official: If anyone knows of any reason why these two people should not be joined marriage, speak now or forever hold your peace.
  Brian: [looks like he's about to say something]
  Debbie: You say one word, and you will be holding more than your peace.
• In the Season 1 finale of the BBC's Robin Hood, Marian is about to go through with her promise to marry Guy of Gisbourne. In an interesting twist, it isn't Robin who crashes the wedding, but his servant Much (Robin turns up on horseback soon afterwards though).
• Saturday Night Live exaggerates this in a sketch in which everyone attending the wedding of a phony Royal (Martin Freeman) and a WNBA athlete (Leslie Jones) has reasons to object to their marriage. The minister (Beck Bennett) lets a few of the attendees^note the bride's roommate (Aidy Bryant), the groom's wife (Vanessa Bayer), the bride's father (Kenan Thompson), the groom's doctor (Taran Killam), one of the bride's teammates (Cecily Strong), and a random self-proclaimed psychic (Kate McKinnon) deliver reasons ranging from infidelity, to fragile genitals, to a premonition that one spouse might murder the other. The couple stubbornly disregards all of them.
• In Shadowhunters episode "Malec", the words aren't said, but Magnus crashes Alec's wedding, giving Alec the courage to come out as gay instead of going through with the marriage.
• Shake it Up: Flynn objects to his mother marrying Jeremy by revealing his parents' adulterous kiss the night before the wedding.
• Subverted in an episode of Sledge Hammer!, where the title character's ex-wife (who has been The Ghost up to now) is remarrying. He spends most of the episode depressed and being more of a jerk than he usually is, but when the wedding finally comes, he shows up late, just as those words are said. For a minute, it looks he might intervene, but he does not, and sits down with the other guests.
• In Soap, Tim's mother curses his marriage with Corrine on his wedding day when this comes up.
• The Suite Life on Deck: Zack uses this trope to save Maddie from her nightmarish wedding to an 8-year-old prince by challenging the latter to a duel. Maddie tried to object herself, only for the minister to say "besides you" when he asks this question.
• Turns up in the Torchwood episode "Something Borrowed", with the twist that Jack, the interrupter, isn't a romantic rival, as most of the congregation assume, but he's stopping Gwen's and Rhys's wedding because the bride has been implanted with an alien egg, causing her to look nine months pregnant, and the egg's mother is coming to rip it out of her.
• Played straight in Touched by an Angel: A guy who had been in a coma brings an injunction to stop his ex-wife from marrying his friend, who had been given power of attorney and signed off on the divorce in the first place, which is what allowed him to get the injunction.
• Subverted in Twin Peaks: An elderly man is about to marry a (reputed) nymphomaniac, despite concerns that she may cause him to have a heart attack through overexertion. After the priest's call for objections, the groom's equally elderly friend stands and proceeds to castigate the bride, only to have the sheriff take him by the elbow and gently steer him outside, still ranting. The wedding continues uninterrupted.
• Spoofed in Ugly Betty:
  Betty: [Barging in] I object!
  Priest: We haven't gotten to that part yet!
• Invoked and subverted in Undercover (2019): At Peter and Anja's wedding, the officiant skips the line, but Ferry interrupts and tells him that he's supposed to ask if anyone objects, and then takes the opportunity to object. Then he immediately says he was just joking and launches into a speech about how much the couple meant to him.
• In Vega$ (1978), Dan goes to his secretary's wedding to stop her from marrying a guy who plans to kill her and her son in order to collect the very large trust fund from her father which otherwise would be payable to her son. He has the police run a patrol car up to the church with siren, telling the guy that they found the witness that will prove he did this before. The guy panics and runs. It doesn't hurt that there's probably a lot of UST between Dan and his secretary anyway.
• The Vicar of Dibley plays with this trope:
  • At Alice and Hugo's wedding, a woman bursts in insisting that she has the papers to prove that the groom is already married, but when Hugo turns around, she looks sheepish and says, "Whoops, wrong church."
  • Geraldine dreams that she has accepted marriage to her perennial nemesis David Horton, but at the last second Sean Bean (whom Geraldine has a long-standing crush on) bursts into the church to stop the wedding and the dream.
  • In another dream, Geraldine fantasizes that she's the one breaking up a wedding, while singing "It Should Have Been Me", with the men of the parish council as her backup dancers. The fantasy ends with her punching both bride and groom in the face on her way out of the church.
  • And at Geraldine's wedding, no one objects, but the officiating vicar, who's had a crush on her since the seminary, tries to encourage people: "It can be anything at all."
• In Waterloo Road, Tom discovers that the 16-year-old girl he's looking after is going to marry her long-term boyfriend. He rushes to the Registry Office, enters at the correct point, and states the marriage is unlawful. It isn't — she's got the required permission from her estranged father, her mother was killed at the end of the previous season, and he has no legal authority over her. It doesn't prevent the fight afterwards, though.
• Wedding Season: The show opens with Stefan barging into Katie's wedding asking her to run away with him. She rejects him.
• In Workaholics, Blake finds out that Karl's fiancée is fooling around with someone else on their wedding day, but struggles to tell Karl. But Blake is also presiding over the ceremony, and when he calls for objections, he finally raises one himself. This leads to the fiancée running Karl down and the wedding being called off.
• Subverted on The Young and the Restless, during the wedding of Billy Abbott and Victoria Newman. The minister (played by Elinor Donahue) begins to say the line when Billy suggests she skip it. Given the large number of extended Newman and Abbott family members in attendance, this was wise. Subverted again when the cops break up the wedding for unrelated reasons.

Music

• "It Should Have Been Me", performed by Kim Weston, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Yvonne Fair, and Dawn French (see above):
  Then the preacher, oh yeah, the preacher asked,
  "Will there be silence, please?
  If any objections to this wedding, speak now,
  Or forever, forever hold your peace."
  Then I shouted:
  "It should have been me!"
• Elton John's "Kiss the Bride" is about an ex-lover who chickens out at this moment despite planning to do this.
• Taylor Swift's "Speak Now" is about her sneaking to her crush's wedding. When the preacher says, "Speak now or forever hold your peace," she stands up and asks the guy not to marry the wrong girl and run away with her instead.
• Etta James's "Stop the Wedding" opens with this.
• Billy Ray Cyrus's "Could've Been Me" mentions the trope:
  My buddy John said you looked real pretty
  And you acted like you were in love
  He said the preacher asked for objections
  And he thought about standing up.
• Fabulously subverted in the video for Train's song "Save Me San Francisco", which you can see here.
• Played for drama in Death Cab for Cutie's "Company Calls Epilogue", where the narrator crashes through the wedding doors, drunk and screaming. It's supposed to be sympathetic, but not in a heroic or righteous way.
• The Shirelles's "Foolish Little Girl" is about how a fickle young woman, who treated her ex-boyfriend like dirt, is pleading that she is still in love with the groom in question, and her friends are telling her to keep her mouth shut since she didn't want him before and not wanting her to wreck a wedding between two people that love each other.
  Girl: But I love him...
  Her friends: It's too late to have a change of heart...
  Girl: I still love him!
  Her friends: ...Tomorrow is his wedding day, and you'd keep quiet, if you're smart!''
• Implied in the Sandy Rogers song "Fool for Love":
  The last time I saw him alive
  He was standing up on the bride's side
  Shouting his objections at the groom
• The bridge of "N.M.E." by Set It Off, which is about the narrator trying to convince his friend to leave a controlling partner, references this trope:
  If you're both in black and white
  And they ask who dares defy
  I'll be raising my hand high
• Defied in Thomas Rhett's "Marry Me." The singer has been in love with a friend for years, but has never worked up the nerve to tell her. He's getting ready to leave for the ceremony and considers that he could do this trope and confess his feelings, but he doesn't want to mess up her wedding day (or their relationship) and decides he'll just wish her well.

Professional Wrestling

• Subverted in the wedding of Edge and Lita on WWE Raw, as the minister says the line, only for the recently-fired Matt Hardy's entrance music to fill the arena. The whole ceremony stops for several seconds, only for Edge to bust a gut laughing at the joke he played on the Smart Marks in the audience.
• At Test and Stephanie McMahon's wedding on Monday Night Raw in 1999, the minister says the line, and Triple H comes out on stage to inform everyone that Stephanie is already married... to him! He then rolls the footage of the two of them getting married at a drive-thru chapel in Las Vegas. Only problem was that Stephanie was drugged for that wedding, so much so that H had to move her lips to say "I do" — which would have vaulted him over the Moral Event Horizon were it not for his being a Villain with Good Publicity.
• On Saturday Night's Main Event in 1985, hillbilly Uncle Elmer married his wife, Joyce, in the ring. When the minister said the line, Roddy Piper came out with a microphone and declared, "You stink, you stink, and this whole damn wedding stinks!"

Radio

• In the first episode of season three of Old Harry's Game, the late Professor's widow is about to marry someone who may actually be a criminal. When the Professor asks Satan to stop the wedding without bringing that up, he takes the form of an ordinary woman and reveals that the officiating vicar is a wannabe Satanist — and thus a member of a group he'd chastised at the start of the episode.

Stand-Up Comedy

• Jeff Foxworthy once noted that anytime a pastor utters this line, any groom will be deathly terrified that someone is about to jump up and yell, "I love her, and she's carrying my baby!"
• Emo Philips tells a story in one of his routines about being asked to attend his ex-girlfriend's wedding, but while he's there, he realises he just so happens to be missing the World Series. He decides to listen to the game on a Walkman, but it's not going so well, and when the pitcher lets in another run, Emo forgets where he is and stands up screaming, "Darn it, you loser; how many of these stinking bums are you gonna let score?!" And he did it right when the officiant said the line. Of course, as a peace offering, he makes coleslaw for the reception, and it gets even worse from there.
• Parodied by ventriloquist Jeff Dunham: In one concert film, one of his puppets, Walter, recalls that for him, the scariest movie he ever saw was a home movie of his wedding. Jeff asks what exactly he didn't like about it, and Walter replies, "The worst part was when the minister asked if anybody objected, and no one would listen to me."
  Jeff: Maybe they just didn't hear you.
  Walter: Hey, you're right — you weren't there!

Theatre

• A humorous non-wedding example shows up in 1776: When the Continental Congress decides that they need a formal outline of the colonies' reasons for seceding from Britain — that is, the Declaration of Independence — John Adams volunteers himself, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman, and Thomas Jefferson (known as the Committee of Five) to draft it. Jefferson doesn't want to be involved, as he's been separated from his wife for six months. As per the Rules of Order for a meeting, he tries to object, only for John Hancock to get in some epic trolling:
  Adams:: Move to adjourn!
  Franklin: I second!
  Hancock: MOVED AND SECONDED, ANY OBJECTIOOONS?
  Jefferson: (literally standing right in front of Hancock) I have objections! I have lots of—
  Hancock: (with a massive grin on his face) SO MOVED! CONGRESS STANDS ADJOURNED!
• In Bare: A Pop Opera, this line is said at Peter and Jason's wedding. Surprisingly, no one objects, even though most of the attendees are homophobic — unfortunately, it turns out that it was All Just a Dream.
• In the second Dream Sequence in Lady in the Dark, this is the cue for the chorus to object to the mentally afflicted Liza marrying Kendall Nesbitt, over her protests of "I do! I do!":
  The murmurings of conscience do increase
  And conscience can no longer hold its peace.
  This twain should ne'er be joined in holy wedlock
  Or e'en in secular board-and-bedlock.
  This is no part of heaven's marriage plan:
  This woman knows she does not love this man!
• In Knickerbocker Holiday, Stuyvesant says, "Can anyone give reason why this troth should not be plighted?" Mister Schermerhorn speaks up, and charges that Tina visited Brom in jail and lost her skirts in the process. The objection is ultimately dismissed, but the wedding is interrupted by a battle.
• Li'l Abner makes a whole song about this. Marryin' Sam is stopped at the last minute from marrying Daisy Mae to Earthquake McGoon by a timely rhyming interruption from Abner, whose own wedding to Daisy Mae is interrupted several times and is still up in the air when the show ends.
  "And so with my blessings, I pronounces you man and—" "Wait!"
• Pulled by Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing — at his own wedding. When he's led to believe that Hero was banging another dude the night before, he begins the wedding by revealing everything that he had appeared to see, leading to Claudio and Don Pedro berating and insulting her as she sits crying. Don John pretends to be sympathetic for them, and Leonato completely flips out and demands Hero's death.
• Sorta-kinda subverted, rather touchingly, in the finale of Side Show: Violet, one half of a Siamese twin pair, is marrying a man who can't cope with her "other half", in order to preserve everyone's careers. There's a man who loves and accepts her whom she had to turn down, because he's black and she can't bear the stigma, but "if there is anyone who thinks these two should not be joined together..." is meant to refer to Violet and her sister Daisy, who have just affirmed that no matter what happens, they are (literally and figuratively) bonded forever and love each other. No one stops the wedding.

Video Games

• Parodied in the ending of Arfenhouse 3, where everyone gets married:
  MINIZTER: N IF DER IZ N E OBJECSHUN 2 DIS MAARGE, MAY TEH SPEEK r SHUT UPLOL
  ?????: I OBJEKT!!!!!!
  (Daddy enters)
  HOUSEMASTER: DADDY!!!1111
  DADDY: I M HEER TO WISH U LUCK. I LUV U HOUSEMASTR!@11
  GOOD KITTTY: AAWWWWW
• In the Hentai RPG Brave Soul, Hero Rudy has to bust into the wedding of Cloudcuckoolander Rebellious Princess Karen to keep her from getting married to some prince she doesn't want to marry. He disguises himself by wearing a pair of spectacles. Then the two of them run off and have sex (mandatory for the genre, after all). The twist is that he gets away with it because the prince didn't really want to marry Karen either — he's actually gay and finds Rudy much more attractive.
• In Dead Rising 2, this is done accidentally, leading to a battle among psychopaths. You have a very good reason to object — Randall "Randy" Tugman has been capturing female survivors and forcing them into a wedding with his chainsaw so that he won't die a virgin. And he's forcibly recruited his father, a minister, to help him. He's then killed by one of his victims, now a zombie. "You may now kiss the bride," indeed.
• Final Fantasy X has Yuna being forcibly hitched to Seymour. Cue Tidus and the rest of the party crashing in on an airship and cutting down the guards on their way to save Yuna. As it turns out, Yuna manages to save herself (after the wedding is finished), and all Tidus and company manage to do is get themselves captured (though they soon escape as well).
• This is said by the wedding officiator in Kitty Powers' Love Life, who then remarks that he always gets nervous at that part... because it's possible for your villager's secret lover to object to the wedding, destroying their relationship with their betrothed.
• In Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, your party members do this at the end of the Group Date Café, before the Merciful Clergyman can kill you. During the second zone, you're paired with your "Destined Partner" (basically any party member or helpful NPC in the game) and then you're almost shanghaied into a wedding. The stated reason is different depending on your Destined Partner, with your Mission Control also helping:
  • If it's a female love interest for that main character, Yukiko will barge in and say that they came to rescue you. Also, Rise will complain if you're playing the P4 Side.
  • If it's any female NPC (other side and Velvet Room), Naoto will barge in and call off the wedding due to it being non-consensual on the bride and groom's parts.
  • If it's a guy, Yosuke will barge in and make you reconsider... unless he's your destined partner, in which case he'll be replaced by one of the girls.
  • If it's Aigis or Koromaru, then Naoto will object on legal grounds. She's got good reason to do so — Aigis is a robot with a limited grasp of humanity, so she'd be considered a child in the eyes of the law and Koromaru deserves no legal debate.
• In Rune Factory 2, when a girl with a maximum affection for you is being married to another guy, you can choose to congratulate them on their marriage, or be a Jerkass and run off the altar with her. Funny enough, the girl is apparently waiting for you to take her away, and calls you a coward if you don't, which really makes you wonder why they were marrying the other guy in the first place. Strangely enough, priest Gordon never says the line, and you get to choose to steal the bridge only after the vow. So, basically, you're destroying a freshly established marriage, rather than preventing one.
• In Sakura Wars, the cinematic that shows during a combo between Sumire and Ohgami is him crashing her wedding in a scooter and her riding away with him into the sunset. Every time. The Let's Play by Spirit Armor posits that each time the cinematic plays represents Ohgami going back in time to crash his own wedding.
• Apparently played straight in the final scene of The Secret of Monkey Island, where you not only interrupt the wedding, but you even get to choose what to yell out — and yes, "ELAINE!" is an option. Lots of fun. Alas, your heroism is all for naught, since Elaine has long since freed herself and the "bride" under the flowing veil is actually a pair of monkeys.
• Super Mario Odyssey: Stopping Bowser from forcing Peach to marry him is the driving goal of the entire game, and Mario dramatically bursts into the chapel where the wedding is being held just as Bowser's trying to put the ring on Peach (who, to her credit, is actively resisting his attempts to do so, despite being daintily-built and dressed in a fancy gown.)

Visual Novels

• Umineko: When They Cry, Episode 6: Battler's mind is trapped in a logic error. Erika wants to take his position of Territory Lord by marrying him while he's a powerless breathing doll, trapping his mind forever. She succeeds, and the "guests" are all enjoying themselves, when a resurrected Beatrice comes to crash the party, curb-stomping Erika and releasing Battler (who had bet on this happening all along), After that, Battler and Beatrice have a real, uninterrupted wedding.

Web Animation

• In the Bonus Stage episode "Rya's Wedding", Joel and Phil arrive to crash... um... Rya's wedding, but the priest says they've still got an hour of reading to do. When he finally gets to the line, nobody objects. Phil, meanwhile, wanted to go beyond the "speak now" line and wait for Rick to get to "I do", specifically so he could punch him and say, "Looks like you don't."
  Phil: If I had done it that way, I wouldn't've gotten to use the one-liner!
• In Etra chan saw it!, this happens several times and it's never a good thing when it does. This story in particular is notable for parodying the more positive media portrayals of this set up, while showing it from the perspective of the groom being left at the alter. Akane and Hiiragi are not helped in this instance by the fact that they'd only met mere days prior to the wedding.
• Helluva Boss: In "Exes and Oohs", Blitzo specifically calls this trope "doing a Shrek" as he and Millie ram a limo through a wall to stop Moxxie's forced marriage. He even says "I OBJECT" and stumbles out as Millie goes to work.
• Lampshaded and parodied in the Oxhorn Short Shorts video "Inventing Swear Words 4": During Mortuus and Lacy's wedding, the Orc Priest gives the line and practically begs the crowd to speak up. Someone does a little later, which upsets the Priest because they didn't do so earlier.
  Orc Priest: And now, if there be any here who can show just cause why these two... people... should not be lovingly be joined together, speak now or forever hold you peace. (beat) Anyone? Really? No one? This is your big moment! Thunk, any objections? No? Sure? Okay, then. Ah- Thought I saw a hand in the back there. No? Just stretching? Sure? Last chance! All right.
• Sekai no Fushigi: Right when Daisuke and Miyuki exchange their vows, a woman suddenly breaks in to object to their wedding. At first, the guests think she's Daisuke's lover, only to realize that Miyuki was the one looking terrified. Moreover, it's revealed that Miyuki had an affair with the woman's husband. As a result, Daisuke calls off the wedding and her parents disown her.

Webcomics

• In one Achewood strip, Roast beef has a nightmare of this going horribly at his own wedding.
• In Fisher, during a wedding ceremony, Tom Fisher raises his hand and pretends that he wants to say something in response to this line. Then he adds, "No, never mind", and whispers to his girlfriend, "I've always wanted to do that!". She is clearly not impressed with his quirky sense of humor, and responds, "Now you die."
• Subverted in this strip of Housepets!: a wedding is interrupted while the officiator is still on the "we are gathered here" part.
  Keene: Gyk— we have that whole "speak now" part for a reason!
• Kevin & Kell: Subverted for laughs during Lindesfarne and Fenton's wedding:
  Reverend Bruinoge: "And should anyone object to this union... ...Let him speak now or forever hold his peace." (checks phone) "Nothin' via text or Facebook! We're good to go!"
• Defied in The Law of Purple: During Red and Rose's wedding, the (rather intimidating) pastor tells the guests that anyone who objects to their union should "please leave the premises now." The entire assembly is figuratively frozen in their seats.
• In The Order of the Stick, Elan is at the re-marriage of his parents and notices something's wrong when Nale doesn't want to object. So he objects, realising that the Order are trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine.
• In the last arc of Ozy and Millie, Millie's father interrupts the wedding between Millie's mother and Ozy's father. Of course, he's not so much objecting as he is seeking confirmation that Llewellyn really loves his ex-girlfriend.
• In a Shortpacked! guest strip, this happens at David and Maggie's wedding. Not because Batman really thinks they shouldn't get married, but because some running gags just can't miss a cue. And in their real, pirate-themed wedding, "speak now or forever hold your peace" is answered angrily by a pirate troupe member who gets "shot" by another pirate troupe member, and then as the ceremony proceeded, the body is carried off by the rest of the troupe.
• Something*Positive:
  • In the Back Story of SP 1937, Davan (the one modern-day Davan's named after) apparently offered "constructive criticism" at Vester and Gladys's wedding (modern-day Davan's grandparents), on the grounds that "what's the point of 'speak now or forever hold your peace' if no one uses it?"
  • When Aubrey and Jason get married in the present day strip, Branwen says she's not attending because she wouldn't be able to keep silent. In fact, she's composed a PowerPoint presentation of all the reasons she's thought of so far. The Justice of the Peace waits longer than is traditional to see if anyone's going to say anything, and views the fact nobody tries to stop the wedding as evidence there is no God.
• Swords:
  • A dragon objects at a wedding... because the dragon is in love with both the bride and groom. Cue the couple flying off with the dragon, with three swords symbolizing their union.
  • In another wedding, someone tries to object, only to be scared off by the entire wedding party pulling out their swords.
• War and Peas: Played for laughs in "Wedding Day". The couple from "Lucky Penny" is at the altar, and the priest calls for any objections: "speak now or forever hold your peace". The bride's mime ex-boyfriend stands up, but as he's a mime and doesn't speak, the wedding proceeds.

Web Original

• Arby 'n' the Chief does this twice, first played for laughs ("Wedding"), then for drama ("Collapse").
• Happens with a formal engagement announcement, rather than a wedding, in A Hero's War — and naturally, someone objects. Theoretically the engagement and wedding could proceed regardless, but there would be serious political consequences for just ignoring the challenge.
• Done hilariously in Improv Everywhere's Charlie Todd's wedding.
• Episode 17 of The Joker Blogs, at Harleen's wedding: Joker shoots Father McHale before he can get to "peace".
• The avoiding of this trope is hilariously lampshaded in Porta dos Fundos' Casamento.

Western Animation

• In The Adventures of Puss in Boots, after several close escapes from a Lotus-Eater Machine, Dream Weaver Maliflua decides to try keeping Puss in Boots busy and trapped within the dream with a wedding to his love interest Dulcinea. Of course, the real Dulcinea happens to enter Puss' dream just in time to be the one to object to the wedding.
• Played with in the episode of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog where Robotnik gets married. Thing is, he knows that the woman he's marrying is not the right gal — she's just incredibly into him and he can't tell her no. Just as Sonic's about to marry the two, Robotnik's mother comes in screaming, "You bet I object!" Turns out that Sonic hired her to storm the spot because It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.
• In All Hail King Julien, Julien finds what seems to be his perfect match, but the relationship goes too fast for him and he finds himself engaged to her. His last hope is that someone will object, but he finds out that the "speak now" line is not part of a traditional lemur wedding, so Julien resorts to interrupting the wedding to solicit the question himself and then also having to be the one to voice his own objection. She doesn't take any of this well.
• In The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The End," Banana Joe says this at Gumball and Penny's "wedding." Penny objects for multiple reasons:
  Penny: Firstly, I'm twelve, and so are you. Second, you didn't even propose to me! You just tried to marry me in the school corridor.
  Tobias (passing by): Hey guys! Happy wedding!
  Penny: And finally, this is not a wedding ring. It's a bagel.
• Done in an episode of the animated series Beetlejuice, in which Lydia is being forcibly wed to outlaw Bully the Crud, a large and mean-tempered bull. The quivering official, terrified of the groom, invites anyone who objected to either "hold up a hand — or hoof — or forever hold your, uh, cud." A few of the attendees hold up their hands, briefly, until Bully threatens to shoot them. Fortunately, BJ himself shows up at literally the last possible second to interrupt the proceedings.
• In Ben 10, the priest is shot in the mouth by the bride's parents, who were aliens made of slime. They objected to their daughter marrying a human groom, despite the fact that this would unite their races. Oddly, they were around for the entire episode while everyone prepared for the wedding, but specifically waited until the ceremony and that line to ambush the proceedings because they wanted to make it look like the ex-boyfriend was the culprit.
• Big City Greens: In "Barry Cuda", Tilly is shown officiating a "wedding" between Phoenix and one of the chickens; she says this word-per-word just before Cricket rudely interrupts with Barry Cuda.
• Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot: In "The Reluctant Assassin", a wedding is interrupted, as the priest says these exact words, by Big Guy tearing through the wall and bearing his weapons. He then realizes his mistake, wishes them the best and leaves.
• In the ChalkZone episode "My Big Fat Chalk Wedding", Rudy is forced into a wedding with a chalk drawing version of Bobbie Sue, a little girl who developed a huge crush on him, as they made an art project together "just like a mommy and a daddy". As the preacher asks if anyone objects to the marriage, Snap comes to the rescue in a wedding dress and veil, claiming that the wedding can't take place because Rudy promised to marry him.
• In the Chop Socky Chooks episode, "Speak Now, or Forever Hold Your Breath", when the priest gives this at the wedding of Dr. Wasabi and Siren Sung, Chuckie interrupts on the grounds that a) he also loves Siren, and b) part of Wasabi's wedding plan is to flood the mall and make a private haven for him and his bride.
• In DuckTales (1987), "Till Nephews Do Us Part", Glittering Goldie crashes Scrooge's wedding epically, by popping out of the wedding cake and blasting away with a shotgun. It turns out the nephews invited the old flame specifically to keep Scrooge from marrying a Gold Digger after his money.
  Goldie: You no-good varmint! I'll teach ya' to lay eyes on another woman!
  Triplets: Ya-hoo! Let's hear it for Goldie!
• The Fairly Oddparents:
  • Believing Chip Skylark to be wealthy, Vicky tries to force him to marry her. When the Justice of Peace is officiating the marriage, he asks if there was anyone besides the groom objecting to it. Wanda then enters with the record company executive, and thus Vicky learns the secret that Chip is broke, thus she cancels the wedding and hates him.
  • At the end of another episode, The Tooth Fairy and Jorgen von Strangle are getting hitched in Fairy World. When the officiant asks if anyone objects to the marriage, Cosmo (who's harbored a long-standing crush on The Tooth Fairy) begins to speak up, only for his own wife Wanda to threaten his life if he does. He clams up by literally turning into a clam, and wails, "I miss her already!", causing Wanda to scowl.
• In the Family Guy episode "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz", Peter's father flashes back to Peter's behavior at a cousin's wedding:
  Priest: And if anyone knows of any reason why these two should not be married, let him speak now.
  Peter: (looking around) Really? Nobody's going to speak up? I'm the one who's going to have to say it? Ahhh. All right... GENITAL WARTS.
• Subverted on Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, where Bloo totally destroys a wedding he believed was his best friend's. Turns out he was just the ring-bearer.
• Futurama:
  • One of the many spots of All My Circuits naturally lampoons the trope:
    Robot Priest: If anyone here objects to this union, let them speak now or forever hold their—
    (Calculon's evil half-brother starts beeping from the vestibule, to loud gasps)
    Fry: ...Is he objecting or backing up?
    Amy: Looks like both.
  • Fry and Bender go all-out to interrupt Leela's wedding to a shape-shifting alien who is also planning to marry four other women that same day. He does give an excuse when he's exposed, though:
    Do you know how much it costs to rent a tuxedo that can change with my body?
• In the third season of Garfield and Friends, Garfield thinks Jon is getting married, but he was in fact serving as the best man at his cousin's wedding.
• A rather cruel example happens in the episode of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero "Second Hand Emotions". Lifeline attends his younger sister's wedding (which he does not want to do, as his whole family considers him a Black Sheep) when Zartan intervenes right before the line is said, using him to test a new emotion-control device. Lifeline gets angry as a result and objects, yelling that his sister is "too young to marry and too good for that wimp". All the while, Zartan is chuckling to Zarana that "This is going to be fun." Ironically, while this naturally makes Lifeline's relationship with his father worsen for the moment, the villains' plan ultimately causes them to make them talk about it and ultimately reconcile.
• In Justice League, Wonder Woman vehemently objects, with a tank, to Princess Audrey of Kasnia's wedding to Vandal Savage. Vandal Savage, however, simply knocks Diana out and continues with the service.
• Parodied in Episode 60 of Kaeloo: nobody wants Pretty and Quack Quack to get married, and everybody yells their objections, including the bride and groom themselves, but Cloud Cuckoolander Kaeloo marries them off anyway, oblivious.
• The 1950 Little Audrey short "Tarts and Flowers" has the villainous Devil Food Cake interrupt a wedding to steal the bride right as the priest says, "If anyone knows why these sweet things should not wed, speak now!"
• Looney Tunes:
  • In "Hare Trimmed", Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam are romantic rivals to Granny, with Bugs out to stop Sam from marrying Granny (here, established as a rich widow) to clean her out. In the climatic scene, "Granny" (Bugs in disguise) agrees to marry Sam, but at the church, when the pastor says the requisite line, Sam notices who he's about to actually marry and runs out, screaming that he won't marry her for even a billion dollars! "Boo hoo hoo! Always a bridesmaid but never a bride. Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo," mock cries Bugs at the iris out.
  • Inverted in 1941's "The Henpecked Duck", where Daffy's wife wants a divorce for losing their egg (he made it disappear doing prestidigitation and couldn't make it reappear). The wife browbeats to Daffy, "Well, don't just stand there! Say something!! Say something!!" Just as Daffy is about to speak, the wife interrupts "Don't you dare open your mouth!!"
  • Played with in The Looney Tunes Show: Bugs is forced to marry Lola Bunny, and when the priest says the line, Bugs desperately looks around to find someone who will object. Much to his surprise, Lola does.
• The Bakshi Mighty Mouse cautionary tale "Mighty's Wedlock Whimsy" has a hysterical inversion: Mighty Mouse is getting married to Pearl Pureheart, with Deputy Dawg — conducting the ceremony — starting it with "You have the right to remain silent... anything you say may be used against you..."
• While they don't wait for the line (they miss it), this happens in the second Season Finale of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, with a twist. The one who does it is Princess Cadence and Twilight Sparkle, to stop Queen Chrysalis, Cadence's impostor and the shapeshifting Big Bad, from marrying Cadence's husband-to-be and Twilight's older brother Shining Armor.
• The wedding episode of Nina Needs to Go! uses this phrase to set up a pun. After the person says it, Nina yells "I can't! I need to go!"
• Variant in an episode of The Proud Family, where the objector is the groom's son; the groom is apparently senile and unaware of what year it is, among other things. He had a tendency to get in relationships with (and even marry) other women, only to wander off and forget about them.
• Parodied in Pucca, when Garu's enemy Tobe is about to get married. Since Garu never talks, he raises his hand and waves it around, unnoticed, while the presider looks around, saying, "What's that? Nobody? Oh well, moving on then."
• ReBoot does this twice with the same wedding. Bob portals in right at the "speak now or forever hold you peace" moment to stop Dot from marrying Clone-Bob. Dot convinces Real-Bob to leave, but then Glitch reveals that Clone-Bob is Megabyte, who then crashes the wedding in a more literal sense.
• The Simpsons:
  • Subverted in "A Fish Called Selma". Homer learns just before the wedding of Selma and Troy McClure that he doesn't love her, but when they get to the line, he's just sitting there humming to himself.
  • Marge interrupts Patty's wedding to another woman. At first, Patty thinks it's because Marge can't accept the fact that she's gay (which she proved earlier in the episode), but the real reason is that Marge learned that Patty's spouse-to-be was a man in drag who was deceiving her.
  • Grandpa Simpson and Mr. Burns are competing for the romantic attention of Marge's mother. She chooses Burns, and Abe shows up to object with an Anguished Declaration of Love, and she calls it off — but now decides she doesn't want either of them.
• In the finale of Winx Club's sixth season, Eldora, who is officiating the wedding between Daphne and Thoren, asks if there are any objections. Naturally, everyone keeps shut, because they're a One True Pairing.

Real Life

• Marriage laws and forms vary a lot around the world, and asking this question is a legal requirement in some marriages, including those under the Church of England (which is the established church there and thus a state entity). It's especially obvious in a British Royal wedding, some of which are among the most viewed events on the planet — and they do include the line, "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." The line comes from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. There's a modern variant from the Book of Common Worship, which has largely supplanted the BCP in England: "First, I am required to ask anyone present who knows a reason why these persons may not lawfully marry, to declare it now." Non-Anglican weddings don't require the line, because notification of the intent to marry must be published 28 days in advance, providing ample opportunity to object. For its part, the Church of England does actually require priests to publicly announce impending weddings (a practice known as the reading of the banns of marriage) in order to allow for legal objections to be raised in advance. Some other denominations do this too, although from a legal perspective the practice has more or less been rendered obsolete by modern marriage licence requirements.
• At one Society for Creative Anachronism-themed wedding, the ceremony included the line, "If anyone present has any reason why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony... they must defeat the Best Man in hand-to-hand combat!"
• When same-sex marriage was legalized in New Jersey in 2013, outgoing Newark mayor Cory Booker officiated the state's first same-sex marriages at Newark City Hall. When he got to the line, a heckler jumped up and shouted, "This is unlawful in the eyes of God!" Booker had the heckler thrown out by security, and then said, "Not hearing any substantive, worthy objections, I will now proceed," to a standing ovation.

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The Straight Man: Yes! Me!
Guests: Ohhh, come on!