As some of you already know, I am the wedding coordinator for our church. When I was asked to take over the position I really didn't want to do it. My daughter had just gotten married and I frankly wasn't in the mood to even think about another wedding, let alone help random people coordinate theirs. But, I did it, and I love it! MOST. OF. THE. TIME. I love seeing all of the planning come together. I love decorating. I love getting to know the brides and grooms. I especially enjoy it because all of the weddings that are done in our church are between two people who know Jesus Christ as their Savior. It is fun to see the Lord bring two people together and then get to share in their special day.
That being said, I could write a book about the different types of people that I've had to deal with over the last 5 years. The majority are wonderful, but from time to time you get the one who is a little more difficult. I've had bride-zilla and mother-or-the-groom-zilla. I actually told mother-of-the-groom-zilla that, if she didn't knock it off, I was going to lock her in a closet. She thought I was kidding and I'm sure I was, but.... :) Most of my brides are adorable and happy and can't wait to get married and that's what makes my job so much fun.
I can honestly say that the wedding I did this last weekend was beyond anything I could have ever even begun to make up. The bride was happy, easy-going and just wanted to get married. I had watched her grow up in the church. The church was beautiful. The cake was beautiful. I didn't know the groom, but he seemed like a nice young man. The rehearsal went fine. The ceremony went fine. The set-up for the reception went according to plan. The reception started and then literally all *^%# broke loose.
Someone noticed that the box to put cards in was missing off of the gift table. I normally take it off of the table at the beginning of the reception and put it someplace for safe keeping. I hadn't even had time to do that yet, when it disappeared. We began to look for it. Asking family members if they had put it someplace. As we are looking, I remember thinking, "Surely no one stole them from the church." About that time a little girl approached me and told me that she had seen her Aunt with it. Then an adult woman told me that she had seen a woman with it. She described her to me and, sure enough, she fit the description of the little girl's Aunt. The Aunt was a member of the Bride's family. Yep....it doesn't get any better than that. I immediately went to another one of the bride's aunts and told her what had happened and she told me that she would handle it. It is important to the rest of the story that you keep in mind that the bride's family was instantly taking care of this situation. EVERYTHING WAS UNDER CONTROL!!!!
Now enter the groom's family. Once they knew that the cards were missing they were like a dog with a bone. They simply couldn't let it go and let the situation play itself out. We were trying to not have the bride or groom find out about it because we were hoping to diffuse the situation and they would be none the wiser. The groom's family was well aware of this, but couldn't help themselves. The mother of the groom HAD to tell the groom, right before their first dance, that someone in the bride's family may have stolen all of his cards. It was all down hill from there.
The card box was found in the women's restroom. All of the cards were torn open. Checks were still inside, but money and gift cards were gone. The person last seen with them swore that they didn't take them, that they had simply put it in another room for safe keeping. (I have no idea what the truth is and the idea of this blog is not to accuse anyone of anything.) This person's car was searched and their clothing and there was no sign of the missing money.
The next thing I knew people were running out of the reception to the side of the building. I went to look and see what on earth was going on and found a mob of people throwing punches and tossing glass toast glasses at each other. One family was accusing the other of covering up the theft and that didn't go over very well. Pushing and shoving and fists were flying. I found myself in the middle of the whole thing saying something along the lines of, "Stop it!! This is a wedding reception. Let's try and get it back on track and celebrate this marriage with these two. They deserve it. We can worry about the rest of it later." Meanwhile, the Sheriff's Dept. had been called and they showed up at right about this point.
Fast forward a little while. The bride is in the bathroom crying. The groom is outside trying to keep an eye on his parents. The father of the bride is livid and trying to salvage his daughter's special day. The other wedding coordinator finally goes outside and gets the groom and tells him that he's needed in the Women's restroom to try and calm his wife down. For at least 45 minutes there was nothing going on at the reception and believe it or not the guests actually stayed. Finally the bride and groom rejoined their reception and we moved forward. The groom's parents rejoined for about the last 10 minutes.
The really sad thing is that the money was never recovered.(At least not yet.) The person accused may or may not have taken it, but it wasn't found in their possession. The Deputy searched the property in case it had been hidden on the grounds, but didn't find anything. The thing that makes me so angry is that the bride and groom (at that point) should have been on a need to know basis and quite frankly they didn't need to know. The fact that his mother would be the one to ruin their special day is appalling to me. I truly don't get it. We instinctly protect our children, be they 5 or 25, and this just seemed like a very mean and insensitive thing to do. I truly hope she is proud of herself. Generally, we pray that our children only have one wedding reception in their lifetime and to make a conscious decision to ruin it is incomprehensible to me.
Somehow I don't think the two sides of this family will be gathering to celebrate anything together in the future. How sad is that?
That being said, I could write a book about the different types of people that I've had to deal with over the last 5 years. The majority are wonderful, but from time to time you get the one who is a little more difficult. I've had bride-zilla and mother-or-the-groom-zilla. I actually told mother-of-the-groom-zilla that, if she didn't knock it off, I was going to lock her in a closet. She thought I was kidding and I'm sure I was, but.... :) Most of my brides are adorable and happy and can't wait to get married and that's what makes my job so much fun.
I can honestly say that the wedding I did this last weekend was beyond anything I could have ever even begun to make up. The bride was happy, easy-going and just wanted to get married. I had watched her grow up in the church. The church was beautiful. The cake was beautiful. I didn't know the groom, but he seemed like a nice young man. The rehearsal went fine. The ceremony went fine. The set-up for the reception went according to plan. The reception started and then literally all *^%# broke loose.
Someone noticed that the box to put cards in was missing off of the gift table. I normally take it off of the table at the beginning of the reception and put it someplace for safe keeping. I hadn't even had time to do that yet, when it disappeared. We began to look for it. Asking family members if they had put it someplace. As we are looking, I remember thinking, "Surely no one stole them from the church." About that time a little girl approached me and told me that she had seen her Aunt with it. Then an adult woman told me that she had seen a woman with it. She described her to me and, sure enough, she fit the description of the little girl's Aunt. The Aunt was a member of the Bride's family. Yep....it doesn't get any better than that. I immediately went to another one of the bride's aunts and told her what had happened and she told me that she would handle it. It is important to the rest of the story that you keep in mind that the bride's family was instantly taking care of this situation. EVERYTHING WAS UNDER CONTROL!!!!
Now enter the groom's family. Once they knew that the cards were missing they were like a dog with a bone. They simply couldn't let it go and let the situation play itself out. We were trying to not have the bride or groom find out about it because we were hoping to diffuse the situation and they would be none the wiser. The groom's family was well aware of this, but couldn't help themselves. The mother of the groom HAD to tell the groom, right before their first dance, that someone in the bride's family may have stolen all of his cards. It was all down hill from there.
The card box was found in the women's restroom. All of the cards were torn open. Checks were still inside, but money and gift cards were gone. The person last seen with them swore that they didn't take them, that they had simply put it in another room for safe keeping. (I have no idea what the truth is and the idea of this blog is not to accuse anyone of anything.) This person's car was searched and their clothing and there was no sign of the missing money.
The next thing I knew people were running out of the reception to the side of the building. I went to look and see what on earth was going on and found a mob of people throwing punches and tossing glass toast glasses at each other. One family was accusing the other of covering up the theft and that didn't go over very well. Pushing and shoving and fists were flying. I found myself in the middle of the whole thing saying something along the lines of, "Stop it!! This is a wedding reception. Let's try and get it back on track and celebrate this marriage with these two. They deserve it. We can worry about the rest of it later." Meanwhile, the Sheriff's Dept. had been called and they showed up at right about this point.
Fast forward a little while. The bride is in the bathroom crying. The groom is outside trying to keep an eye on his parents. The father of the bride is livid and trying to salvage his daughter's special day. The other wedding coordinator finally goes outside and gets the groom and tells him that he's needed in the Women's restroom to try and calm his wife down. For at least 45 minutes there was nothing going on at the reception and believe it or not the guests actually stayed. Finally the bride and groom rejoined their reception and we moved forward. The groom's parents rejoined for about the last 10 minutes.
The really sad thing is that the money was never recovered.(At least not yet.) The person accused may or may not have taken it, but it wasn't found in their possession. The Deputy searched the property in case it had been hidden on the grounds, but didn't find anything. The thing that makes me so angry is that the bride and groom (at that point) should have been on a need to know basis and quite frankly they didn't need to know. The fact that his mother would be the one to ruin their special day is appalling to me. I truly don't get it. We instinctly protect our children, be they 5 or 25, and this just seemed like a very mean and insensitive thing to do. I truly hope she is proud of herself. Generally, we pray that our children only have one wedding reception in their lifetime and to make a conscious decision to ruin it is incomprehensible to me.
Somehow I don't think the two sides of this family will be gathering to celebrate anything together in the future. How sad is that?
4 comments:
That is a crazy story!!
How have you NOT told me that story? You have had three days to tell me! And I am dying to know which Aunt was accused of this horrible crime and please, please tell me that it's not one of the aunts that I know.
And now I'm left wantin' to know WHO was this person that got married and then, of course, I could start the process of blaming all those that I might know that would be related to her, if only in my mind. What a crack up of a story, the poor things!
Yeah, any of my aunts steal our money, and I'll be the one throwing punches. On my aunts. Yep.
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