The three wedding crashers

Some of you know that my daughter runs a bed and breakfast/event center in another city. So far they have been able to fend off the attacks against small enterprises, survive the slowdown and stay in business. Thankfully, some people still get married.

She has three sons who are true to their gender stereotypes and stay as far away from weddings and receptions as they reasonably can. However true to type, again, they exhibit a little interest when it comes to food at weddings.

They will typically come out of their boy caves just before an event and saunter next door for long enough to see what they might be serving at the current reception. They have tasted every kind of wedding cake they make and every kind of dessert dish there is. There are usually leftovers at these events. Did you ever wonder what people do with their leftover wedding cake?

In fact, if knowing what they were eating could make these boys chefs, they would have CPC (Certified Personal Chef) credentials by now. How many of you, especially you males, know what chocolate ganache is? These kids even have ganache preferences.

So usually they aren't terribly impressed with most of the reception fare, but occasionally they wish they were actually invited to the wedding next door so they could eat the food.

One summer Friday, they found out beforehand that Cold Stone Ice Cream was catering that night's wedding reception, and they were impressed.

“Mom, can have some of the ice cream at the reception?”

“No, the only way you would be able to get food at that reception is to get dressed in your Sunday clothes. I think they would notice that you were uninvited guests if you showed up dressed in worn out shorts and flip-flops. You haven't even combed your hair today. Don't even think of going over there.”

Remembering what a struggle it was to get her kids dressed for church on Sunday mornings, Mom patted her own back for cleverly and successfully deflecting that request.

Later that evening, Mom was “working the reception,” making sure that everything went smoothly for the wedding party and their guests. She was in the corner visiting with a guest when she looked across the room toward the food tables and saw three nicely dressed boys being served by the caterers. They seemed to have quite an unhealthy assortment of toppings being mixed into their ice cream too.

“Look at those cute little boys over there; I wonder who they belong to?” she idly asked the guest. Then she squinted a bit harder.

“Oh my gosh, those are my boys!”

“No wonder you thought they were cute.”

“I thought it was safe to tell them they couldn't eat Cold Stone unless they got dressed in their Sunday clothes. I certainly didn't think they would do it. You should hear them complain about tight shoes and stiff collars on Sunday morning.”

The boys successfully and happily got away with crashing the party. And just to make it worth getting dressed up for, they went through the line twice.

I am tickled to think that my grandchildren are resourceful, but my other thought is that serving Cold Stone at church could just possibly change the world.