Armchair Anonymous: Wedding II

0:00Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dak Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hello. Today is wedding disasters that was incubated in another episode where someone was arrested at their wedding. That's right. We thought this is probably ripe for some good stories. And it was. And it was ripe as fuck. Ripe AF. There's theft. There's allergies. There's too much semen. I mean, there's a lot.

0:37Oh, I forgot. Yeah, there's a lot happening on wedding nights. So please enjoy Wedding Disasters.

1:06Hello, is this Kelsey? It is. How are you? Good. Are your t-shirts always that perfectly folded or did you straighten up before this? I didn't straighten up before this. They're not always that perfect, but I keep it tidy. Where are you? I'm in upstate New York in Rochester. Okay. So you had a challenging wedding? Yes, I did. You did. so we got married in charleston south carolina last october okay isle of palms that's what my dad said we got married right downtown in hampton park it's so nice i was so excited i had been planning this day my entire life i knew the vision that i wanted i knew the color scheme i was just so over the moon excited to plan this wedding was it a destination wedding or were you living in Charleston?

1:54Everyone was coming from out of town. Okay. Okay. So we have the rehearsal dinner the night before it's at this like big bar patio. And that was going to roll right into a welcome party where everyone was invited. My fiance Trenton and I were like really looking forward to that. It was going to be kind of this more casual wedding before the wedding. We went like all out. We got a band and we'd open bar and we got food for everyone. So at the rehearsal, we ate around seven and then the welcome party started at eight. So everybody starts coming in And right at eight, I'm standing with my best friend, Yavra.

2:26And I'm like, Yavra, I feel a little funny. Oh, no. She's like, OK, well, it's like a little hot in here. It's like overwhelming. There's so many people. Let's go out into the parking lot and get some fresh air. So I'm like, OK. We get out to the parking lot. And I'm like, Yavra, do I look weird to you? And she's like, no, you look great. But immediately, I had a pit in my stomach. I knew exactly what was happening. Oh, no. I sprint into the restaurant, into the bathroom and look in the mirror. And I have this like dime size swelling in the corner of my right eye. And I'm just looking at it grow and grow and grow until my whole face within like seconds is swollen shut.

3:08Shellfish? Peanuts. I have a severe peanut allergy. This restaurant swears up and down that they don't have any peanuts in house. They don't carry any peanut products. but this is the only thing I'm allergic to. And it always happens like an hour after I ingest it. What had you eaten an hour before? It was like German beer garden foods. It was like kielbasa. I think the thing that did be in was there was a salad. It was a peach and goat cheese salad or something, but it had like crunchy chickpeas on top that were fried. My gut tells me that's what it was. Maybe even fried in peanut oil. Yeah. So I'm in full anaphylactic shock now.

3:46Oh my God. throat is closing. I can't breathe out of my nose. I can't swallow. And my face, the only way I can describe it is I look like Will Smith in that movie Hitch. He has an allergic reaction. That's exactly what I look like. I look insane. So I run outside to my mom and my fiance and my brother and sister come over. I'm like hiding between two cars. I'm mortified. In that moment, I cried harder than I've ever cried in my entire life. I was having a full-blown panic attack and anaphylactic shock at the same time. Now, I don't want to victim shame you, but I got to ask a question. I hate when people always ask me this because I was allergic to bee stings, but did you have an EpiPen?

4:28I didn't. Oh, no. Yeah, I know. You have to have one. I can relate, but I can relate. No, if your body can do that at any moment, you 100 % have to have one at times. The only thing I will say is I always do. It was just my rehearsal dinner. I had nothing really with me, not my normal purse. So Trenton and I have to like rush off to the hospital. They give me epinephrine. And then whenever they do that, they want to like observe you for eight hours. Make sure you don't have any adverse reactions. So that would bring me to 5 a.m. the morning of my wedding, laying in the hospital. Oh, Jesus. I kind of like accept defeat for a while.

5:08We're laying there. I'm in like my big white dress from the rehearsal dinner. everyone's at the party having a great time and finally at like 12 45 i'm like what am i doing here i ring the nurse's bell and i'm like am i being detained i'm gonna go now okay yeah yeah i'm with you i'm gonna walk out the front door so we get home at like 1 30 so it's not too too bad but it's not like ideal miss the whole party and so the morning of my wedding i wake up first thing i do is open the camera on my phone i look at myself and the swelling has just gotten so much worse as I slept because you're like laying down I looked like an absolute monster out of a movie so I'm genuinely at this point considering calling off the wedding I can't do this I look insane the photography the videography walking down the aisle and leading up to the wedding I had been working out more than ever before I'd been eating so healthy getting facials I wanted It's like the most beautiful I've ever looked.

6:09It's the ugliest I could ever look. Oh, my. This is like some sort of parable. It is. It is. Tell me when I'm allowed to look at this photo that Rob supplied. Yeah, you can look at it. That's from the hospital the night before. Oh, sure. We're looking at you. And then that. You just don't look like you at all. No resemblance. It doesn't look like me at all. Oh, it got worse. We were actually on a good photo. Now we're in. Also, weirdly, it kind of made you 60. It aged you somehow. You do look a little older with all this fluid in your face. Oh, Kelsey, I'm so sorry. Oh, no. On your big day. This is so sad.

6:52But you seem to have a good attitude in these photos. It's kind of like when you're in a little bit of shock. You're just like, I guess this is kind of funny. But now looking back, it's not funny at all. Maybe you weren't smiling. Maybe that's just the puffiness. Yeah, I'm stuck like that. What can one take to reduce swelling in the face? Maybe. I took everything under the sun. One of my friends is a PA and she gave me like Pepsid. She said that helps with inflammation. Pepsid AC? Yeah, I think so. Okay. That rings a bell. Yeah. It's effervescent. I remember it. The day of my wedding, I'm like, I guess I just have to like start getting ready and like move on with the day.

7:31So I'm like trying to have a good attitude about it. I do end up having a good morning with my bridesmaids. I'm kind of forgetting about it, even though I had so much to do the morning of my wedding. And I was just stuck there with like two frozen spoons on my face trying to make the swelling go down. At one point, I'm like, I'm going to go look over my vows on my phone and sit by the water for a second. So I go outside, I open my phone, and I have an email from the catering manager from the night before. So I'm like, oh, she's checking on my well being, of course. At this point, She doesn't even know if I'm freaking dead or alive.

8:01So I read the email and it's like, Kelsey, in all of the craziness that happened last night, I actually forgot to charge you for some of the food and you owe a full payment by end of day today.

8:18I was like, what planet are you living on? I was just rushed to the hospital from your restaurant. You almost killed me. It's my wedding day today. And you send this demanding, urgent email. It was so crazy. I was so filled with rage. They like ruined my looks and now completely ruining my mood. Did you respond? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. What kind of? Sharply toned. Unhinged, all caps. Yes. I was like, how dare you never contact me again? I was in a crazy back and forth fight with them my whole honeymoon. I mean, you could have sued them. Yeah, for reimbursement of the whole wedding. At least the photography.

9:03I can't even look at those photos. Oh. They look awful. No, you still look really cute. You look cute. Yeah, you actually look cute. Oh, my God. I know what you're talking about. So when you were at the vows part and you were crying, were you crying about the state of affairs or joyful crying? Probably a little about... I walked down the aisle kind of pissed. I was like, this is not how I wanted this to go. And I was kind of in a little bit of a bad mood at the end of the altar. But then my brother did this reading and couldn't read. It was like he had never read before in his life. I got like the church giggles from it.

9:42And it kind of was this weird release. And then everything kind of got better after that. Oh, good. Little brother. Big brother. Oh, big brother. Okay. Because I was gonna say those little brothers, they're good for that. That could go either way, though. You could be like, and now you can't even read. You forgot how to read. Now this reading's gone downhill. Now at any point were you like, oh no, these are signs from the universe. No, I've actually never even thought that. Oh man, there's so much pressure on that day. So much expectation. It's so hard. And so much money spent. That weirdly gets to me a lot when I think about it.

10:16Yes. This is why I'm a big proponent of the courthouse, everybody. buddy. You go down there, you walk in, you walk out, then take a nice old trip. There's something very special about everyone in both of your worlds being in one spot. I love weddings. I still think you can do it for about 150 bucks. Order some Domino's, get everyone in the backyard. Yeah, we spent more than that, but it was so fun. It did end up being such a beautiful day. The weather was great. The DJ was incredible. Luckily, there wasn't really many times I looked in the mirror, so I kept forgetting about it during the day. That's the move.

10:47At the end of the day, the most important thing is like I married Trenton. I love him. I'm so lucky to be married to him. He's the best husband in the world. I guess all is well that ends well, but it was pretty traumatic. And you, for life, have a phenomenal story. That's right. No one would want to hear about your wedding at a dinner party otherwise. I would be fine with that. We wouldn't have to talk about it. You're like, I have plenty of other stories. I didn't need this Yeah, totally. A lot of people are like, you'll laugh about this someday. I'm like, no, I won't. That is so rude. Thank God.

11:21I was trying to glass half full it, but I guess we're going to stick with it being half empty. That's how you can feel all your feelings. Yeah, you're entitled. Thank you. Oh, Kelsey, that was really funny. Despite you saying it's not funny, it was very funny on our end. We're glad we got to hear it. Yeah. I'm glad it brought me to you guys, so it's okay. Well, have a great rest of your day. Yeah, that was lovely. Thank you so much for letting me tell us. This was so great. All right. Take care. Okay. You too. Bye. Oh, poor Kelsey. That's rough. That's tough. These are going to be tougher than we anticipated.

11:54Yeah. There's going to be some happy stories. Oh, I think we asked for bad stories. Hi, Clara. How are you doing? Wonderful. I'm trying to take in all your many shoes behind you. It's a very athletic household. It's my husband's closet. Is he a runner? Not really. He just has a ton of sneakers. He just likes comfortable footwear. Where are you at, Clara? I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina. Oh, okay. We're staying in the region. We just had a wedding story from Charleston. Oh, nice. So you're in Charlotte. And are you from there? I'm originally from Columbia, South America, and moved to North Carolina when I was like seven years old.

12:32Oh, wow. Wonderful. I love North Carolina. Do you ever get over to the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Blue Ridge Mountains? I have. I'm going to Asheville this weekend. actually. Oh, you are? Just because I'm actually going with a friend to help her do some wedding planning. Ding, ding, ding. Dingles. So tell us, you have a challenging wedding story? Yeah. So me and my husband got engaged in September of 2023. I really wanted a long engagement so I wouldn't stress and worry about wedding planning last minute. So we ended up finding a venue. It was called Champagne Manor in December of that year. It checked all the boxes.

13:08It seemed perfect. It was beautiful. And the owner was offering this 2025 wedding package deal. That was one set price and you got everything with it. All the vendors, two night stay. I love it. Turnkey. Exactly. The only thing I didn't really like was that there was a tent for the reception area and I wanted something indoors. He actually said that there was a structure coming that was like this glass ballroom, showed us pictures, and it was going to be ready by like early 2024. He also said there was construction starting on these cottages so more people could stay on the property. So we booked it for May 17th, 2025.

13:45We paid the deposit, which was$10 ,000 and didn't have to start paying all the payments until later on. But he convinced us to put more money down because then he'd take off more of the total. And then he offered some upgrades and we ended up putting down$30 ,000. My heart rate's already up. And then we still had more to pay, but weren't going to pay until the end of the year. He just kept having all these little promotions where he was offering all this crazy stuff and just wanted a bunch of money up front. It started getting a little weird. Like he was offering fireworks. He even said you could get a bouncy house.

14:17Oh, my God. That's classy. He just started getting really bad at communicating with me. He was taking forever to respond. I was like, OK, so what's up with the construction? Where's the ballroom? What's going on? Connecting with the vendors. And he did connect me and everything eventually. But he just took forever to do it. And I started planning the whole wedding, but I was still just getting worried about the whole thing because he was being so sketchy. So I was like, let's have a meeting about it in person. My mom wants to see the venue. So we went, me and my husband, with my mom. And this was end of the year 2024.

14:49It was in December. Still, the ballroom wasn't ready, but he was like, I promise it'll be ready for your wedding and it's going to be great. And when I tell you this guy's just a really good salesman, he's just very charming and convincing. My curiosity for someone like this is, do they believe it or are they just a straight fucking liar? And how can you do that? I know. I just don't have it in me. It felt like one of those, he's such a liar that he makes himself believe it. Yes. I guess to get through it, you kind of have to. We actually left pretty reassured feeling better about it that day.

15:21And then two weeks later, we get this very long, dramatic email that he wrote. He was like, I have tears in my eyes writing this email. told us all about his financial problems, his family problems, his mental health, and basically that the venue was foreclosed on in October. Oh, my God. He doesn't own it anymore. He was renting it back, trying to get it back, and then he just couldn't do it. So all weddings are canceled. He was working on a repayment plan for everyone. This is, what, three months before your wedding? It was January 2nd. The wedding was May 17th. Okay, five. It was your birthday.

15:59Bad luck birthday. Oh, man.

16:18so i just have to replan a whole wedding i guess first thing we just started calling a bunch of venues we toured five or six venues within like 48 hours i called the vendors and actually told them because they weren't even informed and just started planning a whole new wedding. The second part of it was, where's my money? I blew up his email, wasn't answering, tried calling both the numbers we had for him, went straight to voicemail. So this guy fully ghosted us. I ended up finding another bride that was going through the same thing. So we connected. She knew a couple more. We started a group chat.

16:53We started telling each other everything that happened, how much money we We paid all the lies he told us. We just started finding out more and more and more. And this group chat just kind of started growing too. We started adding more people to it. I ended up doing a news interview with my husband on the local Charlotte News. Oh, you did? I was going to say, this could be a doc. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could see this as a doc, Netflix, caller. So after that, people started reaching out to me on social media. And then we started adding them to the group chat. How many people are we looking at at this point?

17:21It was about 25 people in the group chat. And then there was a Facebook group with like at least double that. Oh, my God. And how much money do we think? This guy stole a million dollars, I'm sure. Yes, he did. It was over a million. At this point, I'm getting mad. I feel like the Latina in me fully came out and I was like, if I don't get my money back, I'm at least going to make it my mission to destroy this man's reputation. Right. So he can't do this again. Oh, that's what I did. We actually figured out that he was selling stuff from the venue on Facebook Marketplace. So I decided to get one of my friends to message him and pretend to be interested in buying 75 chairs.

17:57I got her to unfriend me to make sure there were no ties back to me and just set up a time and place to meet him and pick up the chairs. So me and my husband showed up instead. The look on his face was absolutely priceless. Oh, wow. Is that what the picture is? No, it's something else. Oh, great. At this point, I knew he had no money and I wasn't expecting him to just give us money at that point. But I mainly wanted to confront him and yell at him and be like, what's wrong with you? So that's what we did. We yelled at him for like 25 minutes. What was his demeanor? He was just like, I'm so sorry.

18:28And did a lot of blaming it on his family issues and stuff that was going on at home. And he was like, I feel so bad. This is also horrible for me. And very victim-like. That classic narcissist. Yeah, they're always a victim. I would be fearful for myself in that situation. Did it almost get physical? No, we were definitely yelling at him, but he was very calm and nice and apologetic. I had a couple of people tell me like, this is a bad idea. You shouldn't go. And I'm like, I have a gut feeling that this guy is just a coward and it's going to be fine. I was right. Yeah. My husband definitely was like very pissed and was yelling at him.

19:06Yeah. You steal 30 gram from me. We got beef. Yeah. So he told us to do credit card disputes and that that would be our best bet. At the end of the meeting with him, I did tell him in case she didn't notice, no one's buying your chairs. So have fun putting those up. So that was satisfying. After that, somebody reported everything to the police. The sheriff wanted more police reports. Everyone started calling in. We recorded the whole meeting with him. So we gave him all the recordings, told him everything he did. So the police now had enough to arrest him. They used my strategy. So they pretended to be interested in buying something from him and then drove over there, bunch of cop cars and arrested him.

19:41Wow. We realized he had actually moved to Pennsylvania and was only in North Carolina to sell stuff. But he had moved and started an Airbnb business. So it seemed like he was on to his next scam. But he had a bond hearing. They set his bond for a million dollars. Ten of us showed up to the hearing. The DA made a statement, got us all to stand up. We found out that the thing was even bigger than we thought. There was a couple that actually invested$100 ,000 into a catering business that never existed. I'm a real-life con artist. It got so bad that the FBI got involved. We got a call from an FBI and gave her all our information.

20:17So there's still an ongoing investigation about that. His next hearing is end of October because he is still in jail since then. Wow. And did he have any assets that could be seized to help pay back? I work at a law firm. So I talked to some lawyers and I was able to pull up his like report. He had no assets. He had lost everything. He had a business that went under before and a lot of sketchy stuff came up. I wonder what he's doing with all the money, just trying to make this business work? Or is he buying ski boats? I have no idea. That's what we were wondering, too, because that's a lot of money that he took.

20:51And he kept saying that he was putting it all into the venue. We were able to get our money back through credit card disputes. Not everybody was so lucky. And some people did credit card disputes and their banks denied them. Some what credit cards offer like fraud protection? Is that how you were able to get reimbursed? Yeah. And it just depends on the bank. because there was one girl that said that she got part of her money back, but one of the cards that they used, the bank was like, no, we're denying it. Well, that's a blessing that you got the money back. Yeah, it kind of worked out. It worked out.

21:21The venue we found was called Pearl Mansion. It was in Charlotte. We actually did have to move the wedding date. It was two weeks pushback. So that was fun, redesigning all the invites and telling everyone. But you have this great story now that you're a crime investigator. Yeah, we did also do a second interview after the arrest. And the guy was like, so how do you feel now after he got arrested? And there's a really great clip of my husband going, it feels like justice. We worked it out in the end, but the whole thing was just so crazy. That is wild. So am I allowed to look at the photo now?

21:58Yeah, it's his bug shot. Oh, great. Okay. Wow. Wow. 42 years old, white male. I mean, it's interesting. If you heard this story and it was about a guy who saved Christmas, would I look at his face and go like, yeah, that guy looks like he saved Christmas. But because I know this about him, I'm like, yeah, this guy looks like a total fucking. He could go multiple ways. Yeah, definitely. He's not happy in this shot. He's got a frown. Yeah, it's not his best day. Very charming and convincing about everything. I mean, a lot of people fell for it. These narcissists, they say, are really empathetic.

22:34That's like one of their superpowers. Like psychopaths? Yeah, maybe it's psychopaths. I think it's psychopaths. Psycho, socio, and narcissist. Maybe socio. But now you're happily married. Yes, it all worked out. Didn't go exactly the way we planned, but the wedding was great. Well, Clara, that's an incredible story. Thank you so much for telling us. Can I give a quick shout out to my friend Rosa? She was the one that got me started listening to your podcast in the first place, and she convinced me to submit my story. Of course Shout out Rosa So nice talking to you Yeah nice meeting you Have a good rest of your day You too Alright bye bye I said good This guy He looks like a bozo Yeah he does I feel though His life could have gone in so many directions With that face Yeah It has some promise I mean he's not unattractive Right But he looks like a fucking dope Yeah he does Maybe it's the orange outfit It's hard to know If I put my thumbs over the orange, well, that does improve things a little bit.

23:36Yeah, like his hair's kind of nice. I mean, especially in a mugshot, I think you look the worst you've ever looked. True. He looks like a lot of guys from my town. Yeah, I think that's maybe what I see too. It's like, I know that guy who went to my high school. These guys are a dime a dozen. Hi. Hi. What is that? A Cardinals shirt? What is that? Blue Jays? Blue Jays. Are you up in Canada? Yes, I am. Were you born and raised? Yes. And I'm not going to say a boot. I bet you might. You might get flowing and it'll come out. Maybe. Yeah. You know, I was just a few hours south of you in Detroit. Marysville, Michigan was where my grandparents lived.