Three hours before Alex Morris was supposed to get married, he received the kind of phone call no groom wants on his wedding day.

Something was missing.

Actually, several things were missing.

The Bluetooth speakers needed for the ceremony had disappeared. So had cases of drinks that had been purchased for the reception, including soda, beer, seltzer, water and cranberry juice.

Someone, it appeared, had entered the Washington wedding venue overnight and stolen supplies from the property.

Alex had an immediate problem.

His wedding to Kathryn Morris was supposed to begin at 2 p.m.

Guests were arriving.

The ceremony still had to be finished.

And his bride had no idea any of this was happening.

So Alex made a decision.

Do not tell Kathryn.

Instead, he quietly recruited his groomsmen — several of whom happened to work in law enforcement — and tried to solve the theft before his future wife ever realized there had been a problem.

What followed turned a potentially disastrous wedding morning into a story the couple says they will probably tell for years.

The Wedding Weekend Had Started Normally

Alex and Kathryn had rented Worthington Park in Quilcene, Washington, for the entire weekend, from Friday, Aug. 14, through Sunday, Aug. 16.

The couple and their friends began preparing the property on Friday and held their rehearsal dinner there that evening.

They did not expect anyone to interfere with the setup.

There were other people staying on the property, and the venue did not initially seem like a place where wedding supplies would simply vanish overnight.

The next morning, Alex and his groomsmen were finishing the final preparations.

It was close to 11 a.m.

The ceremony was only about three hours away.

Then the DJ called.

The Bluetooth speakers intended for the ceremony were gone.

Alex began looking around.

The speakers were not the only missing items.

Multiple cases of Capri Sun, soda, beer, hard seltzer and bottled water had disappeared as well, along with several bottles of cranberry juice.

For a wedding expecting nearly 300 guests, losing part of the drink supply was more than a minor inconvenience.

Losing equipment needed for the ceremony itself was even worse.

But Alex’s first concern was not the money.

It was Kathryn.

“She Cannot Know”

Alex said he immediately told the groomsmen and others helping with the wedding not to tell his bride.

His reasoning was simple.

Kathryn already had enough to think about.

He did not want her spending the hours before the ceremony worrying about stolen equipment, missing drinks or whether the reception would be disrupted.

So while the bride continued getting ready, a second operation quietly began elsewhere on the property.

The groom and his friends started looking for whoever had taken the supplies.

The plan was to solve the problem without Kathryn ever knowing there had been one.

That plan became considerably more realistic because of who happened to be standing beside Alex on his wedding day.

Several of his groomsmen worked for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

One of them was Undersheriff Brandon Przygocki.

Suddenly, the wedding party had its own group of people who knew exactly how to begin looking for evidence.

The Groomsmen Started Searching for Clues

Przygocki contacted an on-duty supervisor and arranged for a deputy to come to the venue and take a theft report.

Another groomsman began examining the scene.

He looked for tire marks.

He checked for footprints.

Then he noticed something much more useful.

Surveillance cameras.

When the group reviewed security footage, they saw a suspicious vehicle entering the property during the early morning hours.

Later footage showed a person using a wheelbarrow to move items toward the vehicle.

That was the breakthrough.

According to Alex, the law-enforcement officers recognized the vehicle almost immediately.

The community is relatively small, he said, and the deputies were familiar with certain people in the area.

The suspect was identified as Russell Kullander, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

Kullander was later charged with second-degree theft and second-degree criminal trespass.

The allegations against him are criminal charges and do not themselves constitute a conviction.

But for the wedding party, investigators now had something much more important than suspicion.

They knew where to go.

A Deputy Recovered the Wedding Supplies

On-duty Deputy Kyle Pernsteiner went to the suspect’s residence.

There, authorities recovered the stolen wedding items.

And crucially, they got them back before the ceremony began.

The crisis that had erupted around 11 a.m. was suddenly under control.

The speakers could be returned.

The drinks were back.

The ceremony could proceed.

But Kathryn still did not know.

Alex had managed to keep the problem away from her even as deputies and groomsmen were effectively conducting a theft investigation around the wedding venue.

There was only one moment when the secret nearly unraveled.

Kathryn Could Tell Something Was Wrong

Before the ceremony, Alex and Kathryn briefly crossed paths.

She immediately sensed something was unusual.

She asked him what was going on.

Alex denied there was a problem.

He told her everything was going to be fine, gave her a hug and a kiss and walked away.

Kathryn apparently assumed her groom was simply experiencing normal wedding-day stress.

She had no idea that stolen property, surveillance footage and a police response had been occupying his morning.

The strategy worked.

The couple went through with the wedding as planned.

Nearly 300 people attended, and according to Alex, the rest of the event went smoothly.

The bride would not learn what had really been happening until later.

The Bridesmaids Finally Told Her at the Reception

During dinner at the reception, Kathryn’s bridesmaids revealed the secret.

They told her wedding supplies had been stolen only hours before she walked down the aisle — and that Alex, his groomsmen and local deputies had quietly worked to recover everything without telling her.

Alex said his wife’s jaw dropped.

She was shocked not only that a theft had occurred, but that so many people had managed to keep it from her.

She was also surprised that deputies had recovered the property so quickly.

Instead of remembering her wedding morning as a chaotic scramble over missing supplies, Kathryn had experienced the ceremony without knowing the crisis had ever happened.

By the time she learned the truth, it was already over.

A Wedding Disaster Became the Story Everyone Will Remember

For Alex, the incident ultimately became less about the theft than about the people who stepped in to help.

He said knowing his friends were willing to go so far to protect the couple’s day meant a great deal to him.

Przygocki described the situation as surreal: he had arrived as a groomsman but unexpectedly found himself using his law-enforcement experience before the ceremony.

Now, instead of becoming the event that ruined the wedding, the theft has become one of the stories attached to it.

There was a stolen speaker.

Missing drinks.

Security footage.

A wheelbarrow.

A suspect identified by deputies.

And a recovery operation unfolding only hours before hundreds of guests gathered to watch Alex and Kathryn get married.

Through almost all of it, the bride knew nothing.

Alex’s gamble had worked.

He kept the problem secret long enough for his friends and deputies to solve it.

Then, after the vows had been exchanged and the stolen items were safely back where they belonged, Kathryn finally learned just how close her wedding day had come to starting very differently.