Reunion Confusion
My family had a reunion back in the days before cars came with GPS and before cell phones were common. My aunt went out as far through the family tree as she could, with instructions to forward the information and invitation to anyone that she may have missed, so we had over a hundred people at the event.
Because not everyone had been to my aunt’s house before, and no one had GPS in their cars, she and her husband put massive signs reading “[Family Name] Family Reunion” with arrows throughout her town, from pretty much as soon as you get off the highway.
My great-uncle is obsessed with the family tree, and tried to sit down with everyone to get as much information as he could from each person, so he could work on completing it. He’d been sitting with one man for nearly twenty minutes, before suddenly bursting out laughing. The man and his son came to the wrong family reunion.
Apparently, they had been on their way to a family reunion for the son’s deceased mother’s side of the family. The last name was phonetically similar to our family’s — although spelled slightly differently — and the man hadn’t been close with his wife’s family, so he didn’t realize that the reason he didn’t recognize anyone was because there was no one there to recognize.
The man was very embarrassed about the mistake, but he and his son were so friendly that we invited them to stay the rest of the day, as well. They couldn’t, since they wanted to keep going to their proper reunion, but we’ve kept in touch with them to this day, and still call them honorary family members.