In the mid-1950s, when they were newly married and in their 20s, Judy and Robert Snow would often attend wedding receptions in the grand halls of the Plaza and Pierre hotels in New York.
They sipped Champagne and nibbled on elegant canapés as they celebrated these marriages — but in many cases, the brides and grooms were complete strangers to them.
“They would get dressed up and go to the cocktail hour and enjoy the food and the music and, when the guests were going to sit down for dinner, they would leave,” said Linda Snow Gross, one of the Snows’ daughters.
“When anyone asked who they were, they would ask how the other person knew the couple,” she said, “and if it was through the bride, they’d say they knew the groom and if was through the groom, they’d say they knew the bride.”
Her parents, now deceased, told their wedding-crashing stories often, she said, particularly her mother, who not only found them amusing but also believed their presence probably enhanced the functions.
“My parents were, in a sense, professional party crashers because they made the party fun,” said Ms. Snow Gross, who once crashed a wedding in France, though only by accident. “They weren’t wall flowers. They were out there mingling and having interesting conversations.”
[Did you have a wedding crasher at your celebration? Tell us about it.]
Stories abound about party crashers, though Lauren Day, the deputy editor of The Knot, which provides wedding planning resources, said she didn’t believe that wedding crashing was a particularly rampant problem.
“People always ask why anyone would want to crash a wedding and how the idea got started,” Ms. Day said.
The short answer is simple enough: Who doesn’t want to have fun? “People are dancing, and it’s a celebration of love and people want to be a part of that,” Ms. Day said.
Some, too, may have been inspired by the hit 2005 movie “The Wedding Crashers,” starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. Because of their characters’ wild antics, crashers have aspired to emulate them — in varying degrees.
Alan Greenblatt, a New York-based finance industry executive in his early 30s, says he was honoring “a great movie” when he crashed a New Year’s Eve wedding last year. But he also hoped that in the right setting, he might be able to find his own soul mate.
He typed “New York City New Year’s Eve wedding” into Google and was directed to the wedding website set up by Laura Lorenz and Michael Friedman, who were to be married at the Pierre on Dec. 31.
“They looked like a couple I could be friends with in real life,” Mr. Greenblatt said. “They looked possibly similar in age so I thought I would fit in pretty easily.”
Laura Lorenz and Michael Friedman share a kiss at their New Year’s Eve wedding as wedding crasher Alan Greenblatt, on the right behind the groom, looks on.CreditLaMagna/Brett Matthews Gallery
Ms. Lorenz and Mr. Friedman, whose website included a sleek array of photographs, also seemed like the kind of people who would have interesting women at their celebration. “So I threw on my best tux, got a haircut and hopefully end up with a good story to tell the grandchildren,” Mr. Greenblatt said.
He might eventually tell his future offspring about the wedding, but it won’t be because it was the night he met his wife. Instead, he will tell them how he remained inconspicuous in the hallway during the seated meal. “And once the dinner was over,” he said, “I went back in and enjoyed myself.”
Mr. Greenblatt danced, schmoozed with guests (using the Snows’ tactic of claiming friendship with the bride or groom, depending on who the other person knew) and posed for photos, which he posted to Instagram and, in at least one instance, tagged the bride. But even if he hadn’t given himself away with the tag, the couple would have known they had an uninvited guest when they opened the card he left with a $100 gift.
“Congratulations on your wedding and thanks for letting me crash the party. I had a great time. Follow me @alang628 and check out the pictures. Love, Alan G,” the card read.
No one in the Friedman or Lorenz families was too bothered by Mr. Greenblatt’s unscripted appearance, but that may change. “On the one hand I was amused — I could have even found him a nice girl,” said Diana Friedman, the groom’s mother. “But if he shows up in too many wedding photos, my amusement will quickly turn into irritation.”
It’s likely the whole incident could have been avoided if the wedding website had been password protected.
In 2011, Eric Schlakman and some of his digital advertising colleagues in New York realized a simple Google search could provide intimate details about upcoming weddings. Emboldened by the prospect of free Champagne, appetizers and music, they tried putting all the publicly shared data from multiple wedding website companies in one place and created an app called Crash Corsage.
“Weddings are a great time, one of the most fun parties you can ever go to and that’s not just because the food is usually pretty good and the drinks are often free. It’s also a big celebration, often in a beautiful place,” said Mr. Schlakman, now a marketing manager for Stripe, a San Francisco software company.
He admits to having crashed a handful of weddings in the past. “It sure beats sitting on a couch on a Saturday night,” he said.
Although the app never came to fruition, when they announced their plans for Crash Corsage in 2012, Mr. Schlakman said he and his colleagues were shocked by the enthusiastic response and press coverage.
“We thought this is a funny thing in general, an app can gather all this information and present it to people in a way that allows them to do the electric slide at a stranger’s wedding,” he said. “But when you weigh the other side and consider the prospect of someone getting injured or ruining someone’s wedding, we decided against it.”
The app, though, still has a website and Facebook page, because Mr. Schlakman said he and his crew remain amused by the concept. He said they receive several requests each week from people looking for a wedding to crash and are inevitably disappointed that information is unavailable to the public.
Carly Wolfson, 21, found a spot to crash in the summer of 2017. She noticed workers setting up what looked like a festive event at Rock Island Lake Club in Sparta, N.J., and then called her date for the evening to let him know they’d be crashing a wedding.
There were some close calls, but they managed to go mostly undetected that evening even when they found themselves at the best man’s table, where there were available seats. Rather than run away from the close contact with members of the wedding party, Ms. Wolfson leaned in.
“The best man was nervous about giving his speech and I thought, ‘What would I do at a regular wedding that I was actually invited to?” she said. “And then I said, ‘Drain that drink, get on the hill and just do this.”
The bride, Karen Tufo, noticed young strangers seated with her husband’s friends, but was too distracted by bridal obligations to ask who they were. Like Mr. Greenblatt, Ms. Wolfson and her date also left a card. Theirs contained a Polaroid photo of themselves and “a buck for good luck.” When Ms. Tufo saw it the next day, she realized the young mystery guests were interlopers.
“We thought it was the greatest thing ever,” Ms. Tufo said. “We were like, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got to meet these people and buy them a drink. They pulled it off.’”
Ms. Tufo’s maid of honor shared the story with the Patch, an online publication, indicating that the couple wanted to congratulate their crashers for an impressive feat. The story quickly spread to other media outlets and, eventually, Ms. Tufo and Ms. Wolfson were reunited on “The Steve Harvey Show.”
“It was fun,” Ms. Tufo said. “There was no harm and no foul. It made it more memorable.”
