Wedding-crashing thieves hit Gilbert reception

On her daughter’s wedding day, Denise Cummings found comfort in being surrounded by family and friends.

She later realized that the stress-free environment created a false sense of security that criminals took advantage of when they stole money, checks and gift cards from her daughter’s wedding gift table.

On July 19, Cummings and other members of the wedding party noticed two strange men mingling at the reception at Shenandoah Mill near Gilbert and Ray roads in Gilbert. Cummings' daughter, 20-year-old Mandy Nielsen, and the groom, 23-year-old Ryan Nielsen, were enjoying the party to wrap up their special day.

The couple are currently on their honeymoon on a cruise to the Mexican Riviera.

“I noticed somebody lurking around, but I thought it was in the groom’s family,” Cummings said. “I ignored it, I didn’t want to seem rude.”

She also said that one of the men approached her 12-year-old nephew and was brazen enough to ask him the names of the bride and groom. Other wedding guests said they also shared a few words with one of the men.

Shortly after the boy spoke to him, the man told Cummings’ nephew and his friends to go inside to watch the traditional “dollar dance” that weddings often hold to offer good luck to the bride and groom.

The Nielsens’ wedding did not have a dollar dance, Cummings said.

The bride’s family believes that after the man shooed the boys inside the building, he took a metal bird cage that held the cash next to the gift table and fled.

“It just left this awful sick feeling,” Cummings said after she had realized what happened.

The thieves didn’t get away with everything, Cummings said, because of the quick thinking of a few family friends.

Lisa Boehme, 43, would periodically empty the bird cage of numerous envelopes.

Just a few months earlier, Boehme’s friend Christine Ray was the target of a wedding robbery in Gilbert. Ray warned Boehme about the danger of leaving the gifts unguarded.

“I think it’s horrible that somebody found a way to steal from a wedding,” Boehme said. “It’s devastating for a new couple.”

At Ray’s wedding, a gift table was set up in front of Ray’s aunt’s home near Elliot and Greenfield roads for the reception, Boehme said, just before a breezeway into the backyard.

Unfortunately, Ray didn’t think about emptying the holder, and thieves got away with the whole amount of cash and envelopes.

Ray said that she was saddened by the incident at the Nielsen wedding and recommends a large basket that cannot be easily carried away.

Gilbert police Sgt. Mark Marino said that wedding thefts have not been an issue in the town.

Family members are trying to do a bit of digging on their own.

Cummings said that she was scouring the guest book trying to determine how much money was stolen by subtracting the envelopes that Boehme had already secured. She also wanted to look back on the videographer’s tape of the wedding party to get a better glimpse of one or both of the men.

Father of the bride Kasey Cummings said he was approaching the stores of the stolen gift cards and asking for a way to look at the security footage when the cards were used.

Kasey was devastated to learn that his daughter’s wedding was the target of a robbery and said he devoted the rest of the wedding day talking to the police.

“You put so much into this, and suddenly it’s taken away from you,” Kasey Cummings said.