How My Sister’s Wedding Became a Crime Scene in Less Than 20 Minutes

I remember thinking about how my mom died when I was 12 from an undiagnosed heart condition, and how ironic it would be if I died at age 19 from poisoning at my sister’s wedding. The edges of my vision went completely black, and I felt myself slipping away into unconsciousness, wondering if anyone would even notice I was gone until it was too late to save me.

When I woke up, there were paramedics standing over me shining lights in my eyes and asking me questions I couldn’t answer. One of them was putting an IV in my arm while another took my blood pressure and looked worried.

I heard one say my heart rate was dangerously low and my blood pressure was crashing, and they needed to get me to the hospital immediately. They loaded me onto a stretcher and carried me down the narrow back stairs.

When we emerged into the main reception area, everything had stopped. The music was off, the guests were all standing in confused clusters, and there were police officers everywhere talking to people and taking statements.

I saw Felicity standing near the head table, still in her wedding dress, with mascara running down her face and our dad next to her looking older than I’d ever seen him. Diane was in handcuffs, being led away by two officers while she screamed about how this was all a misunderstanding and she’d done nothing wrong.

The paramedics rushed me past all of it and loaded me into the ambulance. The last thing I saw before they closed the doors was my sister’s destroyed reception with overturned chairs and abandoned plates of food and wedding cakes smashed on the ground where someone had knocked over the dessert table.

The hospital was a blur of tests and doctors and nurses asking me the same questions over and over. What did you drink? When did the symptoms start? Did you see who gave you the champagne?

I answered as best as I could through the fog in my brain, telling them about the bitter metallic taste and how Diane had forced me to stay quiet and then locked me in that storage room. They took blood samples and hooked me up to monitors that beeped constantly, tracking my heart rate and oxygen levels while pumping fluids and something they called activated charcoal through my IV to absorb whatever toxin was in my system.

A doctor with kind eyes and gray hair explained that they’d found high levels of prescription sedatives in my blood mixed with something else they were still trying to identify.

“If I’d gone much longer without treatment I probably would have stopped breathing completely.”

She said.

The police came to interview me while I was still in the emergency room, a detective named Foster who had a gentle voice and took detailed notes while I described everything that happened. He showed me photos on his tablet of the champagne flute I’d been drinking from, now bagged as evidence, and asked if I recognized it or remembered where it came from.

I explained that all the champagne flutes looked identical at the wedding—crystal glasses with the couple’s initials etched on the side. I’d grabbed mine from a tray being passed around by servers before the ceremony started, and I’d only taken maybe three sips before everything went wrong.

Detective Foster nodded and wrote something down, then asked about my relationship with Diane and whether she’d ever threatened me or acted hostile before. I told him about the comments she’d made all week leading up to the wedding—little digs about how I was too young to be a bridesmaid and how I was probably jealous of Felicity’s success.

She’d made a big deal about me being in community college while Felicity had her master’s degree and a six-figure job, like my life choices were somehow a personal insult to the family. Detective Foster asked if anyone else had heard these comments, and I gave him names of other family members who’d been present during various conversations.

He thanked me and said he’d be in touch once they knew more about what exactly had been in my system, then left me alone with the beeping monitors and the IV drip slowly clearing poison from my blood. Dad showed up around midnight, still wearing his “Father of the Bride” tuxedo, but with his bow tie undone and hanging loose around his neck.

He looked exhausted and confused and angry all at once, and he pulled a chair up next to my hospital bed without saying anything for a long moment. Finally, he asked me what happened in this broken voice I’d never heard him use before, and I told him everything from the beginning.

He listened with his head in his hands, and when I finished, he said the police had arrested Diane for assault and attempted poisoning and that they’d found a bottle of prescription sleeping pills in her purse along with something called GHB. I asked him why she would do this, and he shook his head, saying he didn’t know, but the police had theories.

Apparently, several guests had seen Diane tampering with drinks before the ceremony, and one of the catering staff had reported seeing her pour something from a small vial into one of the champagne flutes. Dad said Diane claimed she’d only meant to make me sleepy so I wouldn’t cause drama during the ceremony, but the combination of drugs she’d used had nearly killed me instead.

He started crying then, really sobbing, and apologized over and over for not protecting me and for not seeing how toxic Diane had become toward me over the past year. Felicity came to visit the next morning, and she looked like she’d aged five years overnight.

Her hair was still partially styled from the wedding, but her face was bare and puffy from crying, and she wore sweats instead of her honeymoon clothes. She sat on the edge of my hospital bed and took my hand, and we both just cried together for a while without talking.