Florida Couple Threw Wedding At $5.7 Million Estate Hoping Owner Wouldn't Notice

Weddings are really, really pricey. It's almost annoying how pricey that they can be. I mean here you are, just trying to show how much you're going to love your significant other forever and you want to commemorate the occasion. Little did you know that everything would cost an arm and a leg. From the flower arrangements to the table pieces, to the different levels of open bars, to the DJ, there's a lot to consider.

And how could we forget about the venue?

Well, there's one Florida couple that thought it'd be a good idea to try and save on at least one of those expenses. Because at the end of the day, what is a venue cost anyway? You're just spending some time in a location that's going to be there anyway. It's not like anyone's going to completely destroy a location, this is a wedding after all. Unless there's a gnarly repeat of this tragic Versailles disaster.

So they decided to go and make a bunch of wedding invitations that informed their wonderful guests that the celebration of their union would be held at a lofty mansion located in Southwest Ranches, Fla.

And most probably because all of the hullabaloo surrounding wedding preparations and the insanity of having so many plates to spin at once, they forgot to ask the owner of the $5.7 million property if they could host their wedding there.

Nathan Finkel saw the couple on his property on Saturday, April 17 and immediately called the police. Guess the couple's supposed plans of "ahh, they'll be cool with it" didn't really pan out. 

So what would make a bride and groom to be think that a gorgeous property that was for sale would be completely empty for a wedding venue?

Well, that's because it had been listed as on sale for about two years, which may be what spurred Courtney Wilson and Shenita Jones to redefine what it means to be "wedding crashers." Prior to their attempt at staging the wedding there, Wilson actually visited the property, posing as a prospective buyer, Insider reports.

Finkel took Wilson on a tour of the 16,613 square-foot home, which is complete with nine bedrooms and fifteen bathrooms and sits on a massive 7.5 acre estate. It's also got a swimming pool and a gazebo, because what else are you going to do with all of that prime property?

At some point during the tour, Wilson asked Finkel if it was possible for him to use the property as a wedding venue. That didn't seem to confound Wilson and Jones too much, however, as they went ahead and had invitations disseminated that listed the property as the location of the happiest day of their lives.

The US Sun managed to nab a copy of the invitation, which said:

"It is our honor to welcome you into our dream home and Estate, to share this special occasion with us. We are excited to celebrate our wedding night with you and look forward to a wonderful evening of celebration, exquisite feast, and dancing At our Royal Extravaganza!! Seating is open for your convenience. Please sit where you feel comfortable."

One of the most harrowing parts of the entire ordeal was the fact that Finkel had asked Wilson multiple times to leave the property. "I have people trespassing on my property," Finkel reportedly told 911 dispatch according to the Sun. And they keep harassing me, calling me. They say they’re having a wedding here and it’s God’s message."

Apparently, Wilson and Jones' wedding invitation came with an accompanying message that insisted holy divination brought them together and that the Lord wanted them to have their wedding at Finkel's house. "It was then the Lord had revealed to me the purpose of our encounter and answer to my prayer," Jones reportedly wrote online.

Purportedly, every time Finkel asked the couple to leave prior to notifying the police Wilson had told him that it was "God's message" for the couple to be wed there.

When the cops ultimately did show up, Jones and Wilson weren't charged but were ultimately asked to leave the premises.

The couple's wedding invitation was originally supposed to go from 3 PM to 2:30 AM the following day. When the Sun reached out to Wilson for comment, he replied by saying "I don't want to talk about it."

If you're wondering what Nathan Finkel does to have such a massive home, he is the son of a successful IHOP franchisee, Abe Finkel.

To call the place an Estate isn't an understatement either: the pool's a resort-style one complete with a waterfall slide, a hot tub, and a full deck. It's got four fireplaces (kinda overkill) along with a staff's quarters, a huge 800 square-foot bar, a bowling alley, and movie theater, not to mention a fully-lit tennis court.

Nathan Finkel's attorney, Keith Poliakoff spoke to the outlet and had a fairly blunt assessment of the entire situation.

"The guy figured it was a vacant house and didn’t realize Nathan lived on the property in a different home. 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?"

As for what transpired between the couple and officers once they showed up to the scene, there wasn't much of an altercation. "They told them to get off the property and not to come back. That was the end of it," Finkel said.

What many social media users for especially crazy was the wording in the invitation which seemed to suggest that Jones and Wilson were attempting to convince people that the house was theirs.

Some people thought that the move was so ballsy that Finkel should've just let them throw the wedding.

If it was my property I might be inclined to do that as long as they paid for the insurance for the place for the day and if they didn't start telling me that divine powers wanted them to own my home.

What happens if they think the Lord tells them to burn the entire place to the ground? Or that they should drown the owner in the pool so they could run a church out of it? No thank you, not interested in finding out if that happens.