This just proves that not everyone in a suit is a guest

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In the Wedding Crashers, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are motivated by the promise of a little action (not to mention free food and booze). It seems real life wedding crashers are motivated by money. While stomping along on the treadmill at the gym this morning, I happened to catch a news segment about Anthony and Jennifer Smith, newlyweds who, after saying their vows, discovered that many of the envelopes on their gift table had mysteriously disappeared.

The dastardly man in the surveillance shot above pretended to leave a little something for the couple in question before scooping numerous envelopes into his jacket and departing hastily from the premises.

“You never think it’s going to happen, you know, to you,” Anthony Smith said Tuesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “You’re celebrating, having a good time, and then you go on your honeymoon and you find out some guy just decides he needs to take everything.”

As it turns out, this isn’t the first time that brides and grooms at the Garden Grove, California chapel where the Smiths wed have been robbed. I think The Beard put it best when he said, “You have to be pretty darn low to do something like that.”

7 Responses to “This just proves that not everyone in a suit is a guest”

  1. Twistie says:

    I think The Beard put it very well, too.

    Also, this is an excellent argument for following proper etiquette and sending the wedding gift before the wedding. If it’s not sitting unattended on a table in a hotel ballroom, people can’t just waltz in and take it.

    Suddenly I’m very glad our wedding was on private property and not all that big. If anyone had shown up that I didn’t recognize, I’d have known immediately that there was something wrong.

  2. Never teh Bride says:

    Hmmm, seems I accidentally deleted the comments in the previous post 🙁

  3. JaneC says:

    While I am hoping that most people will mail their gifts to us, I know that a few people will bring them. We are planning to put our gift table off to the side in front of the stage where the band is. The MC will notice if anyone is taking rather than leaving a gift.

  4. Pencils says:

    I’ve heard of that happening. I’ve also heard several times of items disappearing out of supposedly locked bridal suites, both gifts and envelopes and things like handbags and jewelry. One bride that I know from online had a beloved piece of jewelry stolen out of her “locked” bridal suite, and the hall has, so far, refused to do anything about it, when it seems obvious that it was one of their staffers that took it.

    We had a small wedding so we were able to hang on to all the envelopes ourselves, in my clutch bag and in his jacket pocket. I worried about having a card box–we were the only wedding at that site, but I don’t know their staffers, and it was in the middle of a golf course, so who know who was wandering around?

    Be careful!

  5. Ninjarina says:

    Most Chinese people have a specific person in charge of taking all the red envelopes that are presented to the bride and groom so this is not really a problem. I have never really understood why people would leave gifts or anything else unattended in a potentially chaotic environment.

  6. raincoaster says:

    My family always has “the cousins” watch the presents (since the cousins are all over six feet and volunteer firemen there have been no issues so far) and we do an opening at the house the next day. We’ve had strangers cruise by and look at the presents, but there’s just something about big lugs in suits hanging around offering them punch that has a way of moving them on quickly.

    I suppose it looks like some kind of mob wedding, but so be it.