Ontario groom wades through mountains of garbage for tossed wedding gift cash

It was an unlikely turn of events for newlywed Joseph Grant, who wasn’t expecting to sort through loads of reeking garbage shortly after his wedding.

But when all of the wedding gift cash was accidentally thrown into the dumpster, Grant ditched his suit and tie to put on a pair of work boots and a hard hat in order to get it back.

Grant and his wife, Paula Horatio, were packing up to leave after their wedding reception at Carmen’s Banquet Centre in Hamilton, Ontario, this past weekend. The newlywed couple didn’t realize they left behind a garbage bag containing envelopes and cards with cash and cheques from their guests, The Hamilton Spectator reports.

So Grant returned on Monday to Carmen’s after getting into contact with the operations director, Matthew Abraham, the day before.

From there, Abraham called the waste management company, GFL (Green for Life) Environmental, for help. They arranged for the garbage to be picked up earlier than usual on Tuesday and then dumped it at a disposal transfer station, where the garbage could be “safely laid out and secured” for sifting.

As Enzo Aprile, GFL Environmental’s commercial operations manager, explained to the Toronto Star, much of the dumpster’s waste “was probably sitting around a good two weeks. It wasn’t pretty.”

Despite the smell, Grant – along with help from Carmen’s staff and waste disposal workers – searched for more than an hour, knee-deep in trash. Finally, a Carmen’s employee found the bag of envelopes.

“When he found it, I was ecstatic and at loss for words,” Grant said.

The newlyweds recovered almost all of their cash and cheques. The plastic dollar bills had to be washed with soap and water. As for the cheques, hair dryers were used to dry them out before everything was taken to the bank.