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A guest at a Florida wedding where the food was secretly laced with marijuana says she was so panicked that she fell asleep in the venue’s parking lot and wrote herself a message in case she didn’t ‘make it.’
Miranda Cady, 38, attended the February 19 wedding as a guest of bride Danya Shea Glenny Svoboda.
The picturesque outdoor ceremony took place in a gated community in Longwood, a suburb of Orlando. Videos obtained by DailyMail.com show Svoboda crying at the altar and guests cheering with glee after she and her partner were officially pronounced husband and wife.
Those feelings gave way to confusion, terror and stupor after the nearly 70 guests – including elderly couples on medication – were served bread, pasta and desserts laced with marijuana.
The bride, 42, and caterer Joycelyn Montrinice Bryant, 31, have been charged with delivering marijuana, tampering with guests’ food and misdemeanor culpable negligence after guests fell ill from the drugged dinner.
The tampering charge alone carries a maximum punishment of up to 30 years in prison.
‘It all hit everyone pretty instantaneously,’ Cady told DailyMail.com. ‘We were all fine and then we were all not.’ Speaking to WFTV, she added, ‘I actually text myself, at one time, a message just in case I didn’t make it through the night.’
When police asked whether guests had requested or consented to the food offerings, groom Andrew Svoboda allegedly ‘stared at Deputy Donald Schwaezman with a blank expression for a few moments before replying, “No,”‘ according to an arrest warrant for his now-wife.
The bride and caterer turned themselves in to the Seminole County Sheriff’s Department, have since been released and are scheduled for arraignment on June 7.
Artist Miranda Cady, 38, attended the February 19 wedding near Orlando as a guest of bride Danya Shea Glenny Svoboda
Svoboda cried at the altar and guests cheering with glee after she and her partner Andrew were officially pronounced husband and wife
The joy gave way to confusion, terror and stupor after the nearly 70 guests – including elderly couples on medication – were served bread, pasta and desserts laced with marijuana
The outdoor wedding took place at a clubhouse in a gated community in Longwood, a suburb of Orlando. Cady says she first noticed something was off when no one got up to dance
Bride Danya Shea Glenny Svoboda, 42, (pictured) and Joycelyn Montrinice Bryant, 31, were charged on April 18 with delivering marijuana, tampering with guests’ food and misdemeanor culpable negligence after allegedly dosing wedding guests with weed – without warning them first
Cady, an artist, met Svoboda through mutual friends in Orlando’s small business scene.
‘We’re all at events and gatherings regularly,’ she said. ‘Crossing paths monthly, quarterly is a regular thing in this town.’
The bride has ‘a great energy and vivacious personality,’ Cady said, making her choice to surreptitiously drug her guests all the more confusing.
‘It was pretty traumatic – emotionally traumatic. I’m the type of person to walk into a room and everyone’s my friend.
‘To be violated this way from someone you like and trust is really hurtful. I didn’t have an option or say. Even if people avoided things like the olive oil, it was still in the bread, in the pasta.’
Guests were served a feast of bread with olive oil and a choice of two different pastas: cheese tortellini and lasagna.
The food ‘took forever’ to arrive, but the energy in the room shifted soon after guests cleared their plates. People weren’t getting up to dance.
‘Everyone was kind of sitting on the sidelines. That was kind of the first red flag. “What’s happening at this wedding?”
‘Around that time, we started looking around and everyone’s giggling. Someone had said, “Are we stoned?” Absolutely, we were out of our minds.’
Even recreational cannabis smokers said the normal-looking meal ‘hit them like a truck.’
‘You can only imagine the rest of us with no tolerance. We thought we were dying,’ Cady explained.
The artist says there were elderly parents and grandparents in attendance, including some who are on sensitive heart medications that should not be crossed with marijuana.
Children sat at a different table, though it’s unclear if they were served different food.
Cady met the bride through mutual friends in Orlando’s business community. ‘Crossing paths monthly, quarterly is a regular thing in this town,’ she said. She now wants to know why her friend surreptitiously drugged her guests’ food
Many of the family members in attendance were from Michigan, Cady says. Some had spent thousands to fly in and stop at nearby Disney World. The guests included elderly grandparents on medications that shouldn’t have been mixed with weed
‘I know if my kids are there, they nibble of my plate,’ Cady said, adding that she doesn’t recall seeing any kids visibly high.
Still, many family members at the wedding had traveled from Michigan, saving up thousands of dollars to take their children to Disney World and attend a memorable family gathering.
‘The memory their children get to take back is their parents stoned out of their minds in their bed. It definitely wasn’t OK that that happened.’
Cady says she was so intoxicated she couldn’t even use her phone to order an Uber. Instead, she rode out the high in her car at the venue’s parking lot.
‘I was supposed to be at Lake Eola delivering flowers for a nonprofit event,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘I could’ve been on the highway. It was definitely a situation I wasn’t prepared for.’
The bride’s friend still doesn’t know why the food was tampered with.
‘I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt. But I really have no idea.’
After police asked groom Andrew Svodoba if the guests had consented to the marijuana-laced food, he allegedly ‘stared at Deputy Donald Schwaezman with a blank expression for a few moments before replying, “No”‘
Children were at the wedding, though they were seated in a different section and may have been served different food
About 60 to 70 guest attended the February 19 wedding reception at The Springs Clubhouse in Longwood, which became a weed-fueled disaster after several unwitting guests helped themselves to marijuana-infused chocolate-covered strawberries, pudding ‘shot’ desserts and lasagna.
One guest told police that he’d texted the groom asking whether the food had been drugged after his wife fell ill and was taken to South Seminole Hospital – Andrew Svoboda allegedly told that guest that he didn’t know.
Deputies took samples of food and silverware for testing, including a bowl, several glasses, a plate and a ‘handful of lasagna [that] was taken directly from a large container of lasagna that was place out during the event.’
Meanwhile, many of the wedding guests were not feeling particularly mellow.
When concerned guests asked the best man, a Department of Justice employee, what was happening, he was allegedly unresponsive, police said.
One woman told police she felt ‘numb, helpless and her mind was playing strange things in her head.’ She believed that her son-in-law had died and her family hadn’t told her, and described seeing ‘the side of a house.’
About 60 to 70 guest attended the outdoor February 19 wedding reception at The Springs Clubhouse in Longwood, Florida
By the time police arrived, employees of Bryant’s catering service, ‘Joycelyn’s Southern Kitchen,’ were fleeing into their vehicles and away from the venue. Bryant is pictured here in a promotional photo
Later, at the hospital, police wrote she was ‘loud and unruly and had to be given something to calm down.’
Another guest, who traveled to the Florida wedding from Michigan, told deputies that after drinking three glasses of white wine and eating two meatballs, Caesar salad, tortellini, and ‘bread with an olive oil and herb dip,’ he ‘felt tingly, his heart started to race, and [he] was having crazy thoughts.’
A third guest vomited profusely, police said, and yet another was ‘so drugged that he was having difficult[y] operating his cellphone to order an Uber’ to take him to a hospital.
A woman identified as Melissa Stout said she also came in from Michigan. After feeling buzzed from a couple of drinks, she ate some food to stop herself from becoming too intoxicated.
She had Caesar salad, a pasta with white sauce and bread with herb dip, according to authorities.
‘After eating the food, she felt much worse,’ deputies say.
She ‘didn’t notice anyone else getting sick as she was on her hands and knees throwing up.’
Every guest tested for cannabis showed positive results, according to the arrest warrant, and none who were interviewed by police said they knew their food had been laced with marijuana.
Each said they would prosecute whoever tampered with the menu.
By the time police arrived, employees of Bryant’s catering service, ‘Joycelyn’s Southern Kitchen,’ were fleeing into their vehicles and away from the venue.
Oe woman told police that she saw Bryant, pictured, removing a ‘green substance’ from a punch bowl, placing it into ramekins and mixing it with olive oil
They learned that Bryant was the caterer by questioning security staff.
Bryant, the caterer, allegedly told Cady about the food’s secret ingredient – Cady told police that she thought Bryant was joking, and ate anyway.
She told police that she saw Bryant removing a ‘green substance’ from a punch bowl, placing it into ramekins and mixing it with olive oil.
‘It should be noted what [Cady] was referring to what is commonly referred to as marijuana ‘shake,’ which is the small scraps that fall off larger amounts of marijuana, the affidavit read.
After she snacked on the bread and oil, Cady ‘felt stoned.’ Then, Svoboda told her that there was marijuana in the food, ‘acting like [Cady] should have been excited as though she were being given a gift.’
Cady told police she ‘felt like her heart was going to stop’ and went to lay down in her car, where she ‘sent a text to herself so if she died in her car someone would know what happened to her.’
Source: Daily Mail
