Wedding crashers: Spanish friends turn up at wrong reception party

It’s a long way from the Basque Country in Spain's far north to the southern region of Andalusia – both geographically and culturally.

In Spain - where regional stereotypes run deep - the Basques are often portrayed as dour, hard-working types while the Andalusians are mocked as lazy and hedonistic.

This contrast was played up to huge box office success in the 2014 comedy Spanish Affair, a movie which told the tale of a young man from Andalusia who is forced to pretend to be Basque.

But when ten friends from the Basque country travelled to Andalusia for a wedding recently, they had no idea life how closely their trip would resemble the plot of a comedy film.

At first, everything went according to plan. The group of old friends met up in Seville where a friend of theirs was marrying a local woman. It was after the ceremony in downtown Seville, however, that things started to go awry.

As the group was leaving the church, one of the friends stopped to go to the toilet.

The group found itself separated from the rest of the wedding party but managed to get onto a waiting bus, choosing seats at the rear of the vehicle.

It was the four women in the group who had the first doubts.

"One of them said she didn’t recognize the hats of any of the women on the bus," group member Javier told Basque regional daily Diario Vasco.

As the bus made its way to the wedding reception, the group joked about the possibility of getting on the wrong bus. "Can you imagine?" they asked each other.

Later on, it emerged the other passengers on the bus had been asking plenty of questions after hearing the Basque accents at the rear of the bus. But none of them approached the strangers.

Eventually the bus pulled to a halt outside the spectacular reception centre known as Hacienda Molinillos, a site popular with Seville’s well-heeled.

Photo: Hacienda Molinillos

"They offered us manzanilla (sherry), white wine, beer and jamón," said Javier of the immaculately dressed staff at the homestead.

The Basque friends were a little surprised by the fine spread of cheese on offer, and by the artful arrangement of the beer but thought their friend had organized it all.

And while the friends still didn’t recognize anyone, they weren’t worried as they had been informed that one last bus was still on the way from Seville.

However, doubts began to surface when they saw the place settings on the tables had been created using record covers from artists ranging from David Bowie to U2. As far as they knew, their friend’s interest in musical was minimal.

Then there was the corner given over to two tennis rackets and a model tennis court – a sport that, as far as they knew, neither the bride nor the groom had any interest in.

Strangest of all was the life-size statue of Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen.

But it was only 20 minutes later when the bride and groom arrived that everything became clear.

"When I saw the bride was blonde, I turned around and said 'something’s going on here'," Pedro, also with the group, told Diario Vasco.

The reactions ranged from laughter to shock as the friends realized what had happened.

The group then skulked away and took several taxis to travel the 50km back to Seville where they rejoined their friends to some "serious teasing".

The story doesn’t end there though.

By chance, one of the photos published by the Basque friends was spotted by the bride of the 'wrong' wedding party.

"I am the bride of the wedding in the photo. You wouldn’t believe how much it is being passed around. And given you were here (at our wedding), you could have stayed all day," the woman wrote.

The bride has even invited the friends to the couple’s first wedding anniversary party in a year’s time, and the Basque friends "haven’t said no".

For now, the only thing they are sure about is that "it’s very easy to crash a wedding".