Patterico's Pontifications

4/21/2021

Palette Cleanser: Florida Wedding Caper

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:49 pm



[guest post by Dana]

The news has been pretty heavy this week, so here’s a crazy little story from Florida about a couple who planned to hold their wedding at a luxurious estate. Problem was, they didn’t have the owner’s approval:

Two lovebirds thought a palatial mansion in scenic Southwest Ranches was the perfect place to tie the knot.

God called them there, they said. So the pair, referring to themselves as “the Royal Couple,” posted an online invitation to “our dream home and estate” — a 16,313-square-foot home with nine bedrooms, 15 bathrooms, a bowling alley, a theater and an 800-square-foot bar.

Trouble was, it was someone else’s home.

The owner was confounded when groom Courtney Wilson and another person showed up at the gate Saturday morning, prepared to set up for Wilson’s wedding to Shenita Jones at what the invite called “the Wilson estate.”

“I have people trespassing on my property,” a fed-up Nathan Finkel told a 911 dispatcher. “And they keep harassing me, calling me. They say they’re having a wedding here and it’s God’s message. I don’t know what’s going on. All I want is [for] it to stop. And they’re sitting at my property right at the front gate right now.”

Wilson, his bride and their guests never made it onto the sprawling $5.7 million property.

Oops:

The wedding was supposed to start at 3:30 p.m. Saturday. A “Red Carpet Cocktail Hour” was to take place immediately afterward followed by a reception that was to last well past midnight until 2:30 a.m.

Guests were invited to return the following day for Sunday brunch from noon to 4 p.m.

“The guy figured it was a vacant house and didn’t realize Nathan lived on the property in a different home,” said Poliakoff, the town attorney. “This guy had no idea he lived there. You know the shock that must have been on his face when he showed up at the gate and the owner was home?”

The individuals left when directed.

P.S. Some months before the wedding, Wilson reportedly visited the property and presented himself as a potential buyer. He then asked Finkle if he could use the mansion for his wedding. Finkle said no.

–Dana

21 Responses to “Palette Cleanser: Florida Wedding Caper”

  1. Heh.

    Dana (fd537d)

  2. I wonder what other things that belong to other people God told them to He wanted them to have.

    nk (1d9030)

  3. Right??? And how are they going to procure those other things God allegedly wants them to have?

    Dana (fd537d)

  4. #2
    God only knows… these people are why God invented rock salt and taught his children how to load it into shotgun shells

    steveg (ebe7c1)

  5. The more you learn about this story, the better and better it gets. Here’s a few tidbits that crack me up:

    1. The mansion belonged to a guy whose father was an early IHOP franchisee, because of course it has to be IHOP (yeah, I know: Waffle House would have been even more awesome).

    2. The bride and groom aren’t a couple of crazy young kids, they first met in high school thirty years ago and recently reconnected.

    3. They got engaged at a pizza parlor this past Christmas Eve, so I blame Governor DeSantis for not keeping the state locked down long enough.

    I’m trying to find out where they are registered, and I will see if I can round up our generous commentariat to send a belated gift to the middle-aged love birds.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  6. OK, gang, here’s the registry. They have expensive tastes in curtain rods, so the hell with that old standby wedding gift. They also want a $64 shower caddy, but I think that in this day and age of economization they should settle for a $24 one from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. They have nine — count ’em nine! — different waste baskets on their registry (no two are alike!) including a model called “the Popular Bath Sinatra Waste Basket” which I would love to get them, but at $88 it’s a bit dear and I worry that their desire for so many waste baskets suggests that they are not good stewards of the environment and consume far too much for a couple of their age. In general I am left wondering why two people in the neighborhood of 50 would need so many household items, but I’m assuming that God directed them to redecorate from scratch and who am I to question that.

    So I think in the end I have settled on the $34 “Popular Bath Aurther Bowl Brush” for their toilets. They have requested two: one in the classic chrome finish and the other in “orb.” I’m open to suggestions on which one we should get them. Just don’t try to talk me down to purchasing the $10 votive candles, because I have enjoyed their little caper far too much to play cheap on a gift in honor of their glorious day.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  7. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around an $88 waste basket. Why, just why?

    Dana (fd537d)

  8. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around an $88 waste basket. Why, just why?

    Uh, did you miss the part where it’s the SINATRA waste basket? Do you think Frank would have something cheap in which to store cigarette butts and spent cocktail napkins?

    JVW (ee64e4)

  9. I wonder what they told all of their guests when the wedding was cancelled?

    Dana (fd537d)

  10. Did they blame God for screwing up?

    Dana (fd537d)

  11. Usually, these stories start with “Florida man”, as in “Florida man tries and fails to take over a mansion for his wedding party.”

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  12. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around an $88 waste basket. Why, just why?

    “Alexa, open the powder-room waste basket.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  13. The father of the bride could not be reached for a printable comment.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  14. Thirty years after high school? I’m guessing their lives have not gone as they had envisioned, and so they went with the next best thing–make believe.

    Trump tried the same thing with Covid. “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” [February 27, 2020]

    What do these people all have in common? Yep. Florida. Is there something in the water down there?

    Adam Carolla’s “Germany or Florida” news guessing game has never been more apropos.

    norcal (01e272)

  15. Well, actually, norcal, up here in Cook County we have a culture of people whose lives matter who move into vacant homes (that they mostly find from real estate signs and listings) and it takes the owner up to a year to evict because they produce a fake lease, fake rent receipts, a flock of kids that neither the judge nor sheriff want to put on the street, a flock of legal aid lawyers, and a state’s attorney who does not bring criminal charges in landlord-tenant cases as a matter of long-standing policy.

    I would think that Florida, with a plethora of snowbirds, would be a target rich area in that respect, too, but I imagine only in locales where the political climate is clement for it. Buyer or squatter, I guess “location, location, location” is still inescapable.

    nk (1d9030)

  16. Absent the “beachfront” estate, this story would also be on the “Florida or Ohio” segment on local (Chicago) sports radio 1000 AM, hosted by Ohiyan (Cincinnati native) and BC Eagle/Chicago Bear Tom Waddle. But according to the JD Vances of the world, these 2 would have OD’d 10 years ago were they from Ohio.

    urbanleftbehind (1d183a)

  17. 14. norcal (01e272) — 4/22/2021 @ 12:57 am

    Trump tried the same thing with Covid. “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” [February 27, 2020]

    That’s probably still correct. It’s what happened with the 1918 flu.

    Maybe not correct if vaccines were instrumental in getting numbers down before it disappears because most of the drop cannot be said to be “like a miracle”.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  18. My apologies if I’ve smudged the palette. Dana had the right idea. A post with bright colors, daffodils in a green field under a blue sky, no somber hues.

    nk (1d9030)

  19. The stones on these people…just WOW.

    Time123 (ae9d89)

  20. “Schizo And Phrenia: A Love Story”

    “Florida Man In The 21st Century, Episode I: Against Finkle The Merciless”

    ?

    nk (1d9030)

  21. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around an $88 waste basket. Why, just why?

    Why indeed, when a mere $375 could get them this classic? Which I covet, BTW.
    But you should know that I’m not interested in the Sterling Silver Enamel Picasso Fish ($13,850) or the Daum Crystal Wild Bear Limited Edition ($23,830). At first I was a bit flattered that some algorithm thought I might be a Scully & Scully customer. Then I wondered if I should be horrified instead.

    Anyway, the sense of entitlement is rather strong on that Florida couple. But at least they didn’t register at Scully & Scully and request the sterling silver enamel crab or something.

    Radegunda (aea52f)


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