Urban legend or evidence that some officials performing weddings are as humorless as TSA agents are required to be?

You be the judge.

I find it odd, though, that the name of the bride and groom are not mentioned in the story.

More like this

Having been to Austria, seems about right. No really, it was a nice place to visit. Someone was a bit to officious.

A link to the English language translation of the original story is at the Improbable Research web site

http://www.improbable.com

It has the names of both the bride and the groom.

The real treat is the name of the newspaper--Oberoesterreichischen Nachrichten.

Hey, at least they're using a "no means no" standard. If I understand the article correctly (my German is pretty shaky), the rule is intended to prevent a family from pressuring an unwilling person into marrying...though one rather hopes that most such cases are caught sometime before they get to the standing at the altar stage. In short, this does seem to be the same sort of situation as a TSA official who is, IIRC, legally obliged to take a bomb threat seriously, no matter how clearly it was meant as a joke or sarcastic remark.