You Will Never Guess What Happened After

Have you ever seen the movie, “The Wedding Crashers”?  If you have then you will understand how funny this was to all involved and what it was that I was thinking throughout.  So let me tell you about this experience.  Last Sunday, I had plans to go with a couple of my friends, to the Crown Valley Winery in Saint Genevieve, Missouri.  And what an experience it was indeed.

While this year has been hot and dry at times, I am told the grapes love it, since this concentrates the flavors and aroma of the grapes into an explosion of tantalizing flavor to tickle the taste buds.  This year Crown Valley purports they are expecting to harvest over 300 tons of grapes from their carefully tended vineyard.  The winery, a stately three story building is located within a very scenic area of Missouri and nestled within a gently sloping terrain of vibrant green pastures, trees and of course grapes; lot’s n’ lot’s of grapes.

This particular Sunday afternoon, a jazz band was set to play, the three of us found our balcony seats overlooking the picturesque beauty of the finely manicured grounds.  We sat down at our table of black, weaved, cast iron, when the first bottle of wine and glasses arrived. We drank deeply of the sweet, juicy flavor of a Blackberry wine and then sampled a bottle of the Muscat of Alexandria (another sweet wine), when I noticed below a large party was beginning to form.  Children and women dressed all in white and subtle pinks were posing around an ivy covered, latticed arch for pictures.  I inquired as to what was going on and was informed that it was a wedding reception for a couple who had just been wed.

Now as the evening progressed and after the last bottle of Strawberry wine, which was a truly mouth-watering fruit wine, ripe, fresh and sweetly bursting with such a fine delicious flavor, that my eyes began to wander once again to the party below.  I tried to talk the couple I had arrived with to go down to the party with me, but they were afraid of getting in trouble, as we did not know a soul in attendance.  Nevertheless, I could not, within my alcohol-induced state and would not be deterred from this self-appointed mission; I was going to crash the wedding party, I was going to be a Wedding Crasher.

Therefore, I strode confidently away from our table, walked down the stairwell and began to mingle; and boy was it fun.  I sat and chatted with one of the guests for a bit, who ended up serving me some of the drink that they had brought for the party, it was a blast.  As I sat, talked and drank I would occasionally glance upwards to where my friends were watching and laughing; I would toast them with my glass and laugh and think to myself I was after all, “the uninvited”, ha-ha.  With more drinks served me, I finally felt the need to introduce myself and so I walked over, clasped hands with the groom hugged his new bride and offered my congratulations to the both of them; I was an immediate hit.

The music began and the air was filled with the latest dance tunes accompanied by lots of laughter.  I danced with an extremely happy bride and stopped and smiled for the photographer as he snapped some pictures; this I was later informed had my friends rolling upstairs, in fact, little did I know at the time, but I had become the talk and center of attention for a lot of people. 

At one point, we all stopped for photos and the bride asked me if I would help blow bubbles towards her, since she wanted to be surrounded by those light reflecting iridescent orbs in as many pictures as she could get.  All in all it was a fantastic evening.  As I was leaving, the party below to once again join those friends I had arrived with, I was stopped at the top of the stairs and approached by three young girls, who while laughing, said they had heard I had crashed the wedding; they told me that they wanted to go down and dance as well.  I told them to go right ahead, to have fun and that the grooms name was, Matt.

The only unfortunate thing about this whole ordeal?  I never got to eat a single piece of cake, ha, it was however fun, and well lucky for me...I did not fall down the steps or anything.