We know it's still technically wedding season, but that doesn't explain why the last week or two has brought us some of the most insane wedding stories since the dawn of time. This time, however, we think we've found the one tale that will stand the test of time...
Because, seriously, how could a party this wild not be worth traveling, getting dressed up, and slipping the bride and groom a couple bucks?
1) Receptions can get out of hand, and often the police need to be called to clear the place out if it's 3:30 in the morning and staff overtime wasn't in the budget. But rarely do they get so out of hand that police officers from 14 precincts and departments arrive and taser the hell out of the bride and groom, then arrest them and make them spend their wedding nights in separate jail cells:
"The short version of the story is they didn't want to quit their partying," said Mike Sepic, Berrien County, Mich., chief assistant prosecutor. "If you put this in the class of wedding receptions gone bad, I guess this would take the cake."
2) Yuk, yuk. Also arrested that night, thanks to their interference in the arrests of the relatives, the groom's father, aunt, cousin, and uncle, each of whom ended up paying $450 and pleading to lesser charges.
3) The fairytale beach wedding turned ugly when Tom Burnison, co-owner of the gallery in which the reception was taking place, got angry with a reveler who tried to break a plate-glass window with one of his lamps. Burnison called the police, who trickled in and were allegedly met by angry, "cursing" guests:
"[The groom] got angry and started yelling, 'What are you doing? This is my wedding! You're making my wife cry!' " Skowron said. "The crowd was trying to hold back the groom from mouthing off more, but finally he broke free, and they had to take him down," Sepic said of police. "He was heading for the officers. . . . Then the bride moved in and tried to interfere."
4) What happened next, as the wedding photographer agrees, represents a total police overreaction and lends credence to the movement against the use of Tasers on unarmed civilians: as the groom was knocked to the ground, his wife held on to him; because of this, she ended getting shocked when he got shocked. The whole party quickly fell apart, and the unhappy couple were hauled off to the pen.
5) The coda to all this and what makes the story so memorable is the little paragraph the Chicago Sun Times failed to elaborate on:
Two nights later, the bride and groom were again arrested in Michigan -- and again shocked by a stun gun -- after struggling with police investigating a noise complain... The groom was charged with pushing his new wife down during that incident, but the charge was later dropped as part of a plea bargain...
6) What happened? Were they beating the crap out of each other? Arguing over whose fault it was their reception ended in disaster? We'd really rather have heard that these two went on to fifty years of a pain-free marriage, made all the stronger by the stormy wedding day. Two friends of ours were just married in New York and their honeymoon was similarly full of chaos: from car breakdowns to spider attacks to being locked out of their suite on the one night they had it reserved... and so on. But as their relatives reminded them, "Most great marriages had auspicious starts..."
Let's hope the same goes for these two... because things couldn't have gotten off to a worse start, no?
Photo and excerpts from the Chicago Sun-Times.
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