More than 50 guests fall ill after Minneapolis wedding

MINNEAPOLIS (KMSP) - It was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives, but now a Minneapolis couple is dealing with a sick wedding party. Of the more than 100 guests at their wedding, at least half have come down with some kind of sickness.

After about a week, more than half the people who attended fell ill including the groom, the minister, and pretty much the entire wedding party. The bride is left wondering whether it's just coincidence or something much more serious.

Newlywed Bobbi Kruta should be glowing and celebrating a new marriage, instead she's fighting back tears thinking she's to blame for an illness that has seemingly infected more than half her wedding guests.

"I just feel really bad," she said. "It's supposed to be a happy day and so many people got sick."

Bobbi married her life partner Dan on August 22 at Columbia Manor, the 90-year-old colonial centerpiece on the grounds of Minneapolis' Columbia Golf Club.

Some guests reported symptoms almost immediately including sore throats coughs, headaches, chills -- and in a couple cases it was worse.

"I felt sick as soon as I was driving home," Brian Boardley, a groomsman, said. "Just really bad cough, lots of phlegm, just nasty stuff. Coughing all night. Haven't been able to sleep. It's hard to work."

Boardley is now on strong antibiotics after a trip to urgent care. He wonders if it was something circulating in the air, perhaps through the building's air conditioning unit on a hot summer night.

Bobbi has been busy contacting everyone at the wedding. She's reached out to the venue and the caterer with no obvious answers as to a cause. Her next step is the Department of Health.

The office confirmed that it is gathering information on the possible illness outbreak and hopes to know more in the coming days.

"We just really want to get to the bottom of it so people know what they have, and how they need to be treated," Bobbi said.

Minneapolis Park and Recreation, which oversees Columbia manor, says it has no other reports of illnesses connected to the facility during the last couple weeks. That includes additional wedding parties, staffers, and daily golfers.