As Told Over Brunch

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The Hypothetical Wedding Crashers

January to March is wedding promo season. No one actually gets married unless you’re having a destination wedding and trying not to pay for your cousin and his/her spouse’s seat at the table. But look to social media for reposts of engagement photos (“#ThrowbackThursday to the time we paid a stranger to photograph us in a backyard we don’t own”), bridesmaid acceptances (“of course I’ll drop a grand on a dress and a bachelorette weekend since we sat together in high school chemistry”), and save-the-dates (“I could just send out the actual invitations, but instead let’s keep the postmen employed”).

The last point is what brings me to today’s narrative. A friend who I haven’t seen since college (so three years ago—actually maybe we saw each other at homecoming two years ago?) is getting married. This week she sent out her save-the-dates. I didn’t get one.

Of course, it’s only day two. Maybe it’s still in transit somewhere between Michigan and Virginia. But I’m beginning to accept that Instagram likes and friendship via bonding over our inability to play beer pong six years ago does not ensure a ticket to an open bar (that’s what nuptials are if you were wondering).

So hello from the outside. I’m not invited to the wedding.

But hope was not gone yet. I texted mutual friends to see who did get a save-the-date and who would bring me along. “Your boyfriend doesn’t mind if I’m your plus-one, right?” I said to my one friend.

I was promptly informed my friend hadn’t gotten an invite either.

What?

This was looking bleak.

I won’t reveal my friend’s name, because I doubt she wants to be associated with my scheming. But what follows are hypothetical deceptions we could employ to get into the ceremony (and to the open bar, the real goal) if we didn’t have a moral compass. Which I think we do. Sorta.

Who cares if we weren’t invited? We could live stream the whole thing. We’d host a viewing party. On one TV would be the Twitter stream. On another would be the Instagrams. And we would take a shot for every hashtag: #WittyWeddingTaglineEvenThoughOnlyTheBrideHasATwitter #WhoIsThisFor #IsSomeoneActuallyClickingOnTheseHashtags #TyingTheNoose #IMeanKnot

Before show time, we would speculate on what the bride would wear.

Me: “David’s Bridal, off-white I predict.”

“What will be for dinner? Tweet at us to vote!”

“Who can guess the wedding colors? Winner gets one extra RSVP!”

I guessed beige. My friend said coral.

Me: “That’s a great guess. I can totally see that Facebook album.”

Friend: “Can you imagine the cake? A coral and beige cake?”

Me: “It will have four tiers.”

Then came our grandest idea: Since people love posting photos that they actually get mail in 2016, what if we made replicas of the wedding invitations and mailed them back in? “Dear Bride, of course we’ll be in attendance! Wouldn’t miss it for anything in the world.”

All we’d need was cardstock and Photoshop. It couldn’t be too hard. And what would the bride say? “I don’t think you were on the guest list”?

Us: “But we got invitations in the mail?”

*Scene switches back to bride wailing, “Where do we seat them?!”*

My friend then suggested even better trickery: “We can Photoshop the food selection to our liking. They don’t have salmon on the menu? We’ll add it.”

Me: “And carrot cake! Gosh, a wedding and carrot cake. It will be such a special day.”

Friend: “We should probably reserve our rooms now, too!”

Because on the wedding site, of course, we saw guests were staying at the Courtyard Marriott. And we had the group code.

“What if we got ten rooms?”

“What if we just stay at the hotel that weekend and don’t even go to the trouble of Photoshop? We’ll be in the lobby and see all our friends and be like, ‘Funny meeting you all here! We’re just on a weekend getaway! What are you all doing tonight? That sounds fun! Mind if we join? Is there an extra seat?’”

“They can’t tell us we can’t come to the wedding if we’re already there.”

“The bride would do her fake laugh, where she’s happy to see us, but ‘this is awkward.’

“I mean,” I went on, “we could also just ask her for an invite. Just be blunt. She’s the type of person who probably wouldn’t say no. ‘You don’t mind if we come, do you? I already bought a gift off the registry...’

My friend added, “If we wait, there will be room, too. She’ll know the number of people not coming. We could be her backups. We’d make round two of invites, at least one of us.”

Me: “That’s all that matters. What if we actually get invited? I already see us, drunk at the wedding and we tell her about all these plans we had to crash her wedding. And she’ll walk away wondering why we’re even friends.”

“She will remember she doesn’t even know us.”

Are we bad people for brainstorming how to crash/ruin/attend a wedding just for shits and giggles? I don’t think so. I think we’re just creative.

But thank goodness for that moral compass we have.

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