Do Catholics get to "speak now" at weddings?

[PL35Katie]

I’ve been to a number of weddings this year, and I’ve noticed that at the Protestant weddings they include the part about “speak now or forever hold your peace.” However, at the Catholic weddings, I have not heard them include this part. Was this taken out recently, was it never a part of Catholic weddings, is it something that is optional to include? What is the story there?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

So far as I know, that exhortation to “speak now” in Protestant wedding ceremonies is not included in the Catholic nuptial liturgy. One reason may be that it was traditional for an announcement of the upcoming marriage (called the banns) to be published by the parish for three weeks in a row before the date of the wedding. (Since the reform of canon law in 1983 this has no longer been required.) The purpose was to allow anyone in the parish who knew of some impediment to the marriage to step forward and make it known. That made saying “Speak now or forever hold your peace” at a Catholic nuptial liturgy unnecessary. Since the exhortation at a Protestant wedding is rhetorical – no one will thank anyone who takes it literally and pops up to protest – my guess is that the exhortation is a ceremonial nod to the ancient Catholic practice of publishing banns.