Marital Admonitions: Tradition or Liturgical Abuse?

The wedding went off without too many hitches, the Mass very a well sung Missa cunctipotens Genitor Deus, and Arcadelt's Ave Maria graced the offertory. As a silver lining, we did not have to endure a sermon! The Mass did have one tiny feature that I have only seen at nuptial ceremonies conducted by the FSSP, that of inserting "admonitions" into the liturgical texts of the Nuptial vows and votive Mass.

I have attended several pre-1970 wedding Masses and the three or four I have heard at FSSP parishes are the only ones which contain this particular practice. Indeed, it is somewhat hard to equivocate what this practice is because it varies a little every time I attend a wedding in such a setting. This past wedding, a solemn high Mass, the "admonition" was a speech or instruction read from a print-out prior to the vows laid out in the Rituale Romanum. It contained the familiar "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today....", the secular "If anyone knows any reason why these two should not be joined....", a some good words on the nature of marriage as a Sacrament of God and for His own ends. Then followed the straightforward exchange of vows, the blessing of the ring[s], and the solemnization by the priest dictated in the Rituale. As a preface to the actual rites of marriage and as a means of sprucing up the rather bare Roman rites of nuptial, one could do worse. On the other hand, one could do more.

During another wedding at the same parish, a low Mass celebrated by a different priest, the same opening "admonition" was read before the vows. Then prior to the blessing of the bride which follows the Pater noster yet another vernacular admonition was read. Then came the blessing for fecundity following the Placeat tibi, which was again preceded by several paragraphs of vernacular admonitions—textually forgotten to this writer. Yet another wedding attended months early had an even different pattern.

Consultation with a 1910 Missal, a Baronius hand Missal, a 1945 St. Joseph Missal, the Ecclesia Dei (RIP) hand booklet, and the Paul V and Pius XII editions of the Rituale Romanum reveals no mandate or precedent for this practice. The closest thing is a warning that contracting marriage prior to denouncing heresy does not invalidate the union. Interestingly, pastors were warned against marrying cohabitants, but were allowed to marry the homeless under certain conditions.

So are extensive "admonitions" a tradition, an elaboration of the Nuptial rites, or an outright abuse?