St Thomas USVI Wedding Crashers...

Adventure certainly finds you when you least expect it... 

It's been a truly exhausting past couple of months full of amazing traveling and vacations.  I can literally count on both hands the # of times I have slept in my own bed.  Buttttt, regardless of fatigue, when you have a opportunity to go to St Thomas for a free stay that just happens to fall on your birthday... You go... 

A girlfriends family has a timeshare, on the beach, at the Ritz.

 So, another flight attendant and I flew down. Getting there in itself started the adventurous day. We didn't make our own airlines flight directly there, we missed it by a connecting couple that ran up with 1 minute to spare.  But, the gate next to us happened to be going to San Juan, Puerto Rico, & we knew it was at least closer to our final destination... So we ran over and hopped on last minute. Very last minute... We didn't know how we were getting to St Thomas from there, but sometimes you just gotta hop on a plane and see what happens ;).   Luck would have it the flight attendants working that flight were from my training class and one was even from San Juan. She was able to pass along info about a small airline that we have an agreement to fly free with I had never heard of. Cape air. They ended up being our saving grace in the form of a 9 seater old as dirt airplane.  I should also thank the family of 5 that didn't show up for the flight. At $450 a ticket (we later looked this up) for a 30 min flight, I almost feel bad for saying that.  The flight over the ocean and islands at probably 5,000' was a first for us, and actually pretty cool. 

So, we arrive and change clothes in the teeee-niny airport bathroom, slap on a bit more mascara and call ourselves ready for a low key dinner and early night in bed.  The dinner part ended up being true to the plan.  We walked up to the restaurant at the Ritz, and along with my girlfriends parents, ended up finding space at the bar for dinner.

That is where we met Corona, the bartender. The name isn't made up for ironic effect btw.. it really was his last name.  He informed us he gets $500 a night to spend on pretty girls however he deemed fit. Well for us it was tuna tartare, and a few drinks... Each.  So, a long while later we decide we should take the restaurant manager and Corona up on the invite to go out with the locals on a Sat night... Convinced that it was the best day for a bday celebration of course. We left the restaurant to walk home and finally change clothes, mainly because a button had popped off a dress in an obvious place, when we met the very pretty woman in the red dress... Janice maybe? I can't remember. Later to be referred to as the lady with marriage 'arrangements' who salsa danced to every song like she was on crack.  Janice was being driven on a golf cart. We inquired how one gets a golf cart ride, as our condo was a long walk. Friendly or cracked out Janice told us to just hop on with her, and when we do, she tells us we should just come with her to a wedding reception.

Our post-wedding golf cart ride with our bff Delroy

Our initial reaction was no way,  we got ready in an airport bathroom, have casual dresses on, and well... We. don't. know. you.  Then she mentioned the magic word.  Boys. Us being 3 single mid-20 something's, reconsidered and after a bit of coaxing from red dress woman about how it's super casual, the wedding has been going all day, and we will fit in perfectly,  decided why the hell not. 

The beautiful cracked out lady lied. On 2 different subjects. 1st off, this was nooooooooot a casual wedding reception. Reminder... It was at the Ritz. The other women were In sequined long gowns, and the bride was nothing short of 35% plastic and had on a lace backless partially see through wedding dress that showed side-boob, under-boob, cleavage, and they were very very perky DD's at least. I should mention she was probably 40-45? It was very difficult to tell.  Regardless, we walk in, the 40 or so done up invited guests that are lounging on the white sofas all turn and look, and there we are... perfect strangers in our sundresses standing with crazy red dress woman.  2nd off, we then realize there are maybe 2 men our age. The grooms nephew and someone else.  They did approach and told us to help ourselves to the top shelf open bar and then after a couple of minutes are gone. 

I don't know what normal people would do, but in the golf cart the red dress woman had mentioned that they needed people to liven the party up some, that the wedding had lasted all day. So, after the initial shock of how out of place we were, Allison immediately headed straight to the DJ booth to make song requests, and Coral and I start making friends and dancing. One in particular walked straight up to me and handed me a shot of Patron, I knew we were going to get along... and we did.  She hung out with us all night.

At some point the groom shows up to his own reception. Again, I'm not a good judge of plastic faces, but he was at least 60+.  Very friendly, and very open with the bridal party. Again, I'm making myself at home dancing with everyone, and I hear him tell a bridesmaid that it's about time she gets her boobs redone. Well, my mouth probably dropped open, but she simply agreed with him and then pulled her strapless dress down for all to see and judge. I had to walk away... If you know me, you know I have 0 control over my facial expressions. 

We stayed for a couple of hours I guess, and by the end of it we put pieces of our convos with the guests together, & realized we had just crashed a multi millionaires wedding... Everyone who attended had been flown down in private jets.  By the time we left, we had made friends, one of us got caught trying to take the bridal bouquet and tiara... Yes I said tiara- it was with innocent intentions for a simple photo op, we danced a lot (some of us with the bartenders/servers... Ahem), and in the end... felt very well liked at a plastic millionaire couples wedding in St Thomas. 

 If only the night had ended there, haha.