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24th January 2025
12:28pm GMT
A bride was left heartbroken after only five people turned up to her wedding.
In a video on TikTok, Kalina Marie explained that she had digitally invited 75 people to her meticulously planned Masquerade ball-themed wedding, which was in October. She had also sent out 25 physical invitations.
However, when the big day came, only five people showed up.
Writing under the video on her TikTok page, Marie said: "FIVE PEOPLE SHOWED UP!!!!!!! Like, are you kidding me!?!? As you see in the video, we enter the venue. And no one is there.
"The invite said 1pm. My mom messaged me at 1:15 that no one was there. My husband and I finally showed up at 2oclock, to 5 people. In a venue planned for 40.
"I dreamed that I would walk in to a bunch of people cheering us on. Hooting and hollering for us in celebration……but all you see is a woman trying to hold herself together because she had NO idea how to deal with her venue being almost completely empty.
"All the wasted food and drinks. All the empty tables and chairs. Every moment of my reception changed to adapt."
The bride said her and her family did still "make the most" of the day, but that the moment she walked into the empty venue took "all the good moments and shot them out of the water."
She went on to ask what her husband did to "deserve any of this," adding: "Why couldn’t we matter enough for people to show up?"
Marie said some of her "friends" still hadn't even messaged her to congratulate her or offer an excuse for why they didn't show up.
She finished by saying: "It truly makes me sick. I honestly can’t wrap my head around this yet.
"But all I know is, I have my man. My baby. And family that shows up when I need them. And for that, I will be thankful."
The video has been viewed more than 6.6m times and racked up some 260k likes, along with thousands of comments from people offering their love and support to the couple.
Some asked how many people had actually RSVP'd to the invites, with Marie explaining 40 had done so.
One person commented: "I’m so sorry! Did these people RSVP? Has anyone offered an explanation? Was the invitation for a wedding reception or a masquerade ball? Like did they know this was your wedding? Sending love and hugs."
Another suggested people may have been confused by the Masquerade ball theme and thought it was a reception invite, to which Marie replied: "I talked about it excessively for 10 months. They knew exactly what it was. Only people on TT who have no idea who I am don’t know what it was."
Other shared their own similar experiences, with one person writing: "Congratulations! This same thing unfortunately happened to me as well 3 weeks ago. I spent all morning decorating myself making sure everything was nice. No one called to say they weren’t coming."
A second person said: "Me & my husband sent out over 200 invitations w/ over 150 RSVP'ING & even calling the night before telling us they're coming. we had less than 40 people actually show. spent over $9,000 on the venue."
In a follow-up video, Marie explained her and her husband had set the October wedding date in January this year.
The 25 physical invitations had gone out to elders and those who didn't have social media, whilst she had made a Facebook event for everyone else.
When one person asked her whether people had explained their absence from the wedding, Marie said she hadn't received many messages offering explanations but that she was "kind of thankful for that."
She said her and her husband have done "a lot of deleting and re-evaluating our lives and just spending a lot of time appreciating what we have and what we had."
