You may find that the requirement varies from one country to another, even from one parish to another. It's certainly a good way to help minimise the divorce rate.
I heard in India sometimes a husband and wife in an arranged marriage don't meet until the day of their wedding. Does this happen to Catholic Indians, and if so, how do they get around the Church's regulation about going through marriage prep first?
Not an answer to the question, and apropos of nothing at all really.
The manager of my little company in India married a man she had met only three times. He was about 15 years older than she. She told me that she didn't really like him the first time they met, but had "got used to the idea of marrying him" at their third meeting.
After they married, he immediately asked her to resign from my company, which she had to do (the husband's decision is absolutely final in such matters in India).
He put her to work at a company that paid more money than I could but where she had a much lower status.
She was a mother 9 months later and quit all work. They then found that they could not live on his salary alone, and he tried to get her "work from home".
Arranged marriages are usually bad for females and the status of women in India has a very long way to go.