There are a number of things that can derail a wedding — from people objecting during the ceremony, to red wine getting spilled on the white dress.
Wedding crashers can also have a big impact on the special occasion, but for one bride and groom, two strangers who turned up unannounced ended up giving them a good laugh.
The random couple were staying at the hotel in Virginia where the wedding was being held, and decided to come along to the celebrations.
Ben Carroll, the bride’s brother, shared the bizarre story on Reddit, saying: ‘Halfway through a great wedding, I see my dad’s best friend hauling a drunk couple out of the reception.
‘We thought it was hilarious and thought nothing more of it.’
However, a few days later, the bride and groom were left scratching their heads after opening a wedding card signed ‘Uncle David and Aunt Nancy’.
Neither of them happened to have any relatives with these names, and weirder still, the card contained $11.54 (£9.01).
As well as the cash, David and Nancy had written a message inside for the happy couple, which Ben felt was just ‘in-your-face trolling’.
It read: ‘Cheers to a life filled with many special memories. We feel blessed to have been witness to your beautiful wedding. We wish you all the best in life.’
The pair double-checked with their family to make sure no one else knew where the card could have come from, but ultimately it seemed there was only one logical explanation.
‘After some disbelief and extra confirmation there’s no David or Nancy, the whole (newly joined) family was beside themselves with laughter,’ Ben told Newsweek.
More than 33,000 people upvoted the Reddit post, with many sharing stories about their own wedding crashers, or people they knew who had done similar things, suggesting it happens more often than you might think.
A user known as u/Gareth79 said: ‘My mother’s friend goes to pretty much every funeral she hears about, we said because presumably of the free food at the wake afterwards. We discussed that you could read the obituaries in the paper and go along to several a day, you’d just have to memorise their name and pay attention to the eulogies to figure out your backstory.’
While u/Lord-Velveeta wrote: ‘That reminds me when we kind of crashed a wedding many years ago. A cousin was getting married and the reception was in a hall of a big chain hotel. That side of my family is kind of a drag and the reception was boring as F so my girlfriend and I decided to check out what else was going on in the hotel.
‘One floor down we found another hall with a large rocking wedding with live reggae music and all! We “wandered” in, and as we mingled basically told them we were guests at my cousin’s wedding upstairs and it wasn’t much fun.
‘People there were super welcoming and told us we had to “join the fun group” and we had an awesome time partying and dancing with them, ended up in the group photos and left a few hundred $ gift in a hotel envelope with a “congrats for the wedding and thanks for having us” handwritten note before leaving (it’s only fair, we drank their booze and ate their food all night!)’
And u/theZosar confessed: ‘For the last few years, I’ve been trolling my friends by finding the weirdest, most bizarre items I can, wrapping them up, and leaving them at their weddings with cards attributed to made up relatives.
‘I always make sure to have someone who doesn’t know the couple, and thus, isn’t invited, sign the card and write a little note so as to avoid handwriting giving away that it’s from me. Only once did the couple guess it was from me (my brother). I had a good friend just earlier this year tell me the story of a couple that crashed his wedding late last year but they at least left a gift, though it was a creepy looking ceramic dog ($0.50 from a thrift store) without knowing it was me that did it. To be fair, I’m not usually one to prank or troll, which is why no one ever suspects me.’
Thankfully it sounds like none of these incidents have had horrific ramifcations for the happy couple, and the bride and groom in question aren’t holding a grudge.
Ben added: ‘David and Nancy, wherever you are, you provided us with a lifelong story and a core memory. Sorry you got kicked out. From the looks of it, you thoroughly enjoyed yourselves!’
However, it seems not every prank goes down so well with the bride or groom, as one unlucky woman, known only as Maya, recently revealed that a rebellious act at her wedding has left her wanting a divorce.
Maya explained that she told her partner of four years, Jake, many times she did not want any pranks on the big day.
Jake had agreed, but kept on watching wedding prank videos online and started acting suspicious, insisting on booking the photographer and cake himself.
The bride said: ‘I reminded him the day before that if he did something (smashing cake) like that, I would break up with him immediately.’
When the big cake cutting moment came, Maya felt a hand on the back of her head, and she was pushed face-first into the cake. Her make-up and dress were ruined.
The humiliating moment caused her to realise that the relationship had to end.
‘I decided to separate from him and file for divorce and informed Jake’s and my family about it,’ she said. ‘Jake just told me not to do that because it was just a harmless prank.
‘I was spammed by both his family and mine that it would be ridiculous to end our marriage over this. but I see it differently.
‘If he does something like this to me despite multiple requests not to do it even after promising he wouldn’t do it then I can’t trust him, no matter what he promises me.’
A wedding photographer added: ‘I’ve seen this happen a handful of times and all of those relationships that I have kept up with have ended in a divorce,’ while a wedding planner commented: ‘I can tell you this is one of the biggest indicators at the wedding that the couple won’t last.’
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