Chairman of the Breadboard recently catered a surprise wedding. Yep – you heard right.  The nuptials were a surprise to all the guests apart from the bride and groom, the party organiser (in this case the bride-to-be’s sister), me and my helpers on the day.

I’m not sure how long the lady who engaged us as the caterer at this event (originally billed as an engagement party) had been in on the secret. My guess is a lot sooner than we were told about it, which was pretty much at the last minute.

I can’t say I blame them for late notice, though. It seems any time one mentions the words ‘bridal’, ‘wedding’ or ‘marriage’ the price of everything jumps by at least 30 percent. And the fact that this was to be a wedding instead of an engagement party really didn’t change the menu or the serving scenario at all. All we had to do was keep mum and not spoil the surprise for the guests.

It went off without a hitch – the guests were suitably taken aback yet delighted at the surprise and the happy couple were clearly more interested in getting married than staging an expensive, stressful wedding. And as I watched the brief but love-filled ceremony I was reminded of Billy Crystal’s line from the movie When Harry Met Sally:

“I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

Here’s to more surprise weddings, I say.