Couple Cancels Wedding Last Minute, Invites Sacramento’s Homeless To Enjoy $35,000 Reception Instead

Imagine that you have planned the wedding of your dreams.  You have paid for the venue, the music is arranged, the caterer is booked, and all you need to do is say ‘I do’ and you have sealed the deal.  Then all of the sudden the Groom calls it off.

What do you do with all the non-refundable services that are already set in stone?  Well, this one bride and her family decided to use it as an opportunity to give back to their community.

27-year-old Quinn Duane called her mom earlier this week to give the sad news: The groom had second thoughts and decided to call off the wedding.

Even among the shock and dismay the bride’s mother Kari Duane decided to jump into action and help figure out the logistics of the sudden change of plans.  The $35,000 wedding deposit had already been paid and Kari told the Buzzfeed crew that even more bills would soon be due.

Via sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com

She decided quickly what needed to be done to give back to her community.

“When I found out … that the wedding would not be taking place, it just seemed like, of course, this would be something that we would do to give back,” Kari told KCRA-TV.

The whole family jumped into action to make sure all parts of the wedding that was non-refundable was recycled back into giving.  They donated all of the non-refundable flowers from the wedding to a local nursing home.

Next they reached out to all of the local homeless shelters in the Sacramento area to invite them to a lavish dinner.  On the would-be day of the wedding around 90 homeless women, men and children came to the Sacramento’s Citizen Hotel and enjoyed a feast hosted by the amazing Duane Family.

Via dailymail.co.uk

Although the Bride was understandably too upset to attend the dinner her mom was present to greet the guests.  The first person to come to the dinner was a woman from the local shelter.

“I was thinking at that moment, if she’s the only person that comes tonight, this was worth it,” Kari said.

Kari, the bride’s mother also told Buzzfeed that she was “Grateful” that she was able to give back to her community this way.  However, she wasn’t the only grateful person that wonderful evening.

“To lose out on something so important to yourself and then give it to someone else is really giving, really kind,” Erika Craycraft told KCRA-TV after attending the event with her husband and 5 children.

Erika Craycraft’s husband also added that the experience was “really a blessing.”

There is a lot that we can learn from people like this.  Just because something doesn’t go according to plan doesn’t mean we can’t help change the lives of people around us.

Sources-

Youtube

huffingtonpost

buzzfeed

Image credit: kcra.com