My uncle turned up drunk for my wedding reception. He’d got the venue wrong and had already spent an hour at a different wedding reception eating and drinking, easy to do at Indian weddings with a huge number of guests.

But that’s only half the story. He’d got the date wrong too, and had already done the whole thing the night before.

Something like this has also happened to me when in holiday in Spain. I was looking around nice buildings open to the public, and entered one that I later found out happened to be a university. Walking around I entered one very well decorated hall, also because it started to rain and had to wait somewhere until it passed. To my horror, more people started coming in as well and I realized I was in for some sort of book or thesis presentation on the subject of Spanish language on the Balearic islands.

I barely speak Castilian Spanish (the more common one) and it was instead in Catalan Spanish, so I didn't understand a word, but stayed for the 1-2 hours it took, clapped, and skipped the handshakes/signing part of it.

Many years ago I took a look at my high school senior yearbook for the first time since I’d graduated. I spotted a note from a girl asking me to call her after graduation.

I didn’t remember the name (first name only), and the phone number was from a different town 20-30 miles from my high school. Unfortunately I don’t believe I still have the yearbook, so it shall forever remain a mystery. I literally had, and have, no clue.

What a classy move to quietly ride it out and avoid doing anything to distract from the ceremony.

When my father left us, a cousine of mine (from my mother's sise) got confused and parked a couple blocks away. She entered the house where people were mourning, and she realised the people she didn't recognise had to be from my father's side. Then she approached the casket and leapt forward exclaiming "I'll miss you, Uncle", only to find a lady laying inside.

I am something of a professional gatecrasher, which is a skill I picked up from a friend many years ago.

Interesting event happening as you’re walking past? Just walk on in, look like you belong, see where it goes. That or carry around a hi vis vest - they fold up tiny and can live in a jacket pocket unnoticeably, and they will allow you access anywhere. Occasionally I’ve had to doodle “STEWARD” or similar on the back. Back in the pocket once you’re in, or you’ll be rigging lighting or serving drinks.

Through this I have ended up with friends, work, and anecdotes galore.

I’ve also been chucked out of a few things but that’s definitely the minority - most of the time when people are like “so are you with the royal brigadiers…?” I’ll just say “no, I’m gatecrashing”, and they assume I’m joking until they realise I’m not, but by that point we’re already on our fourth round.

I'm not sure I understand this correctly but did they mean just the wedding and not the wedding reception?

In my corner of the world it's still fairly normal to have people attempt to crash a wedding reception and it's typically the role of the best man to bribe them with offerings like a shot of vodka or treats.

I have a distinct memory of my friend's father in law, a man close to 2m tall, walking forward, vodka bottle in one hand, shot glass in the other, while the uninvited guest, with just a shot glass, walking backwards towards the gate to the venue where the reception was held.

On the flip side one night over a decade ago I was out on a walk with my SO when we overheard some rowdy people. We wanted to avoid them, but they caught up to us and it turned out that this was an after-party after their wedding reception. They invited us to join them to enjoy the leftovers with everyone.

this happened to my mother-in-law, where she was the crasher.

in North London there is a large Turkish centre that hosts Turkish weddings. She was invited to a wedding there.

Traditionally, the bride and groom stand in the centre of the room and then family members lineup next to them all in a procession.

As you enter the room to reach the bride and groom, you must shake the hands in turn of all of the people in the procession.

When my mother-in-law eventually got to the bride and groom, they realised that the bride and groom were strangers. The accurate wedding was taking place upstairs at the same time.

There are multiple wedding venues in that particular Turkish Centre.

I woke up one morning in college and thought I had overslept. I threw on clothes and ran from my dorm to my class. I walked in two minutes late and grabbed an open seat on the front row, right in front of the teacher.

I didn't recognize anyone and soon realize that I hadn't overslept and was just an hour early. I was too embarrassed to get up and walk out so I sat through the class.

When I was an intern years ago I went to an event at a hotel in LA. I didn't know what room the event was in, so I approached the concierge, described the event I was there for, and he immediately whisked me to an upper floor, where I began to talk with the other guests. It took about 10 minutes for me to realize that while the people there were also interns, and we were in the same field, they were from a particular company, whereas my event was for an industry group. They had just been flown in from all over the country, so it didn't seem odd to them to see a new face (we were all new faces).

I eventually realized the error and quietly excused myself to look for the industry group meeting (which sadly lacked the delicious catered food and open bar that the first event had). Fortunately I made my exit before the higher-ups had arrived, as they would have quickly realized I was in the wrong place.