Picture the scene. The wedding day you’ve spent months planning has finally arrived. The venue is decorated, the caterers have whipped up a delicious spread and the drinks are ready to flow. But as you walk in, you see that only a handful of guests have showed up.
It sounds like a bad dream, but this was the case for TikTok user Kalina Marie, who shared a video on the app about how just five people turned up to her nuptials – despite her inviting 75 people to the masquerade-themed event. In the video, you see two women pulling open the reception doors to reveal the bride and groom and their son. The venue is decorated with fairy lights and lanterns, but all the chairs are empty. In a heartbreaking turn of events, the couple walk down the aisle in silence.
‘POV: You planned the most beautiful entrance. Just to open the doors to an empty venue,’ Kalina wrote over footage she shared on TikTok of the wedding. The video quickly went viral amassing 6.8 million views and 267k likes at the time of writing.
Kalina accompanied the video with a long caption, which detailed how the day played out. She wrote ‘This is our entrance to our Masqurade [sic] ball. The Masqurade ball that I have talked EXCESSIVELY about for the last 10 months. The same ball that I not only digitally invited over 75 people to. But ALSO spent money to send 25 beautiful invitations out to.’
She went on to reveal that only ‘five people’ showed up, continuing ‘Like, are you kidding me!?!? As you see in the video, we enter the venue. And no one is there.’ Kalina’s mother messaged her at 1.15pm with the sad news that no one had turned up, but the couple decided to wait a little longer just to see if anyone made an appearance. At 2pm, they made their entrance to five people.
‘I dreamed that I would walk into a bunch of people cheering us on. Hooting and hollering for us in celebration,’ she said. ‘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.’
Kalina, her family, and the small party of attendees decided to make the most of the occasion. But she was left with lingering doubts. ‘It just makes me think, why? What did we do? Am I that bad of a person? What did my husband ever do to deserve any of this? Why couldn’t we matter enough for people to show up? I still have “friends” that haven’t even messaged me to congratulate me or tell me why they didn’t come,’ she said.
The video has amassed thousands of supportive comments from TikTok users. One user wrote ‘Let’s do it over. This time invite me and the rest of us. We’ll show up and out. I love you beautiful and congratulations!!’ Another wrote ‘you learned who your real ones are on this day, sadly. You don’t need the ones that couldn’t be bothered. You deserve better than that and them. Congratulations to you and your little family.’
Other people chose to share their own experiences in the comments. One user wrote ‘I also have a similar turn out of my event. I invited over 85 people on my mother’s side and not a single person showed up. I fought the entire day to hold back tears. All my best wishes.’ Another wrote ‘same happened to me a few months ago girl I know it hurts I danced alone with my 5 people til midnight only hit me the nxt day see this is a blessing in disguise bbe…[sending] so much love.’
Kalina has since posted several follow up videos responding to people’s comments. In one caption of a video of her and her husband dancing, she thanked TikTok users for their support, continuing ‘Like so many of you have said. My little group is really all I need. And now I truly know who is there for me and who is not. I will just be forever grateful that so many people got to see the entrance I dreamed about for so long.’