Jilted bride continues wedding celebrations by herself

A jilted UK bride has gone viral for carrying on with wedding festivities, all without a groom by her side.

Kayley Stead, 27, was left abandoned by her husband-to-be just hours before her dream wedding. But instead of wasting the £UK12,000 ($19,961) she spent on the party, the bride decided to reframe it to celebrate herself with those who stayed by her side.

“The fact that everybody stayed meant more to me than anything else, and I just wanted to kind of celebrate that,” Kayley said in an appearance on British breakfast show This Morning

“I am a woman’s girl and I always will be, and it was a day about women supporting women and getting us through the tough times because they’ve been there and honestly I couldn’t thank them enough.”

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She shared that, at first, she didn’t believe her “Prince Charming” had abandoned her, thinking he just needed a breather before the big day.

“First of all, when I first heard it I checked if he was OK because that was my first panic. And then when they said he was safe, first of all I was a bit like, ‘OK, this is what he normally does when he wants a moment to himself to think and have a moment to breathe.’

“So I actually wasn’t panicking at first, I asked the girls to carry on, let’s keep it going… So I asked his dad, ‘can you just check on him?'” she recounted.

But a few hours later, the groom’s father delivered the brutal truth.

“His dad rang me. He’s a matter of fact man, he’s a frank man, and he said ‘He is safe but he’s four hours away.’ And we had an hour to get married. That’s when I knew,” said the bride.

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Kayley then decided to make the most of a bad situation, carrying on with the festivities and later posting clips of it on TikTok, which went viral.

She says there were many highlights, starting with her entrance to Lizzo’s Good As Hell.

Writing on TikTok, Kayley said “This song carried me through the day and reminded me that ‘if he don’t love you anymore just walk your fine ass out the door’. I have never resonated with lyrics so much as I did/do with Lizzo song until that moment.”

When it came to cutting the cake, she mentioned she specifically ordered the top tier to be strawberry flavoured for her groom’s family, despite not liking it herself. Before she cut the rest of the cake, she made sure to smash the top layer off.

She also enjoyed the sparkler walk and her first dance with her father, she told The Mirror.

“We were just doing things off the cuff, really. It was all based on instinct, and we just went with it.

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“I was never going to make a speech, but I wanted to thank everyone for staying because they didn’t have to. It was a very awkward situation for them to be in, but they all stayed.

“I wanted to make sure everyone knew that it wasn’t about the sad, we were going to power through this.

“Everybody kept saying sorry to me, but I wanted that to stop – they hadn’t chosen that path, they’d chosen to stay, so let’s celebrate that.”

Kayley is now adjusting to single life, having packed up her ex-fiancé’s belongings and returning them to his family, still without any direct contact from him.

“I wish there was [signs this would happen] because then I would have a reason to back up this decision but there wasn’t,” she said on This Morning.

“No relationship is perfect, but I honestly did think we were each other’s person.”

Speaking to The Sun, the offending groom only had one thing to say: “I don’t want to talk about the article.”

Upon hearing his statement, Kayley has responded: “I don’t expect anything different, but I do expect someone to own their actions and be responsible for what they did.”

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