Bride manages to smile her way through wedding day after being left at the altar
A bride who was left at the altar managed to keep smiling through one of “the most painful days” of her life, sharing the experience on social media.
Rachel Siegel was in her wedding dress, ready to get married when she discovered she’d been jilted by her husband-to-be.
In a video uploaded to Tiktok, which has since garnered more than 3.5 million likes, she leans into the camera, smiling, and says: “My name is Rachel Siegel and my fiancé just left me at the altar.”
As she turns and walks away, raising her arms to the sky and revealing that part of her wedding dress is a floor-length cape, a voice from someone out of frame says: “And she’s so beautiful!”
Commenters on social media commended Siegel and gave her encouragement, with one writing: “I hope you spent the whole day going out with your friends around the city in that gown because it is GORGEOUS!” Another wrote: “You are not defined by him, and this proves it. Have a good cry then go live your best life!”
In another video, Siegel is drinking and dancing with her wedding guests on an old-fashioned bus clearly booked for the occasion, while they all sing along to Paramore’s “Ain’t It Fun”.
She captioned the video: “I was and am continually surrounded with so much love and support… and I am so grateful. thank you all for being here with me.”
A further video from the bus shows the group singing along to Lady Gaga’s “Edge of Glory”.
Siegel also posted a more sombre video update after the wedding day.
“I’m really surprised and honoured to have all of you here with me and share in my story,” she said. “I’m not ready to talk about it yet but when I’m ready to share more, I’ll be here with you all.
“In the meantime I can share small moments from one of the most painful days of my life that turned into something very beautiful.”
Siegel clarified that she had not posted the video for “revenge” or to “hurt anybody”, but in order to “take ownership of a situation that happened to me and to have power over that situation and be the first one to tell the world what happened.”
Despite there being “a lot of pain and hurt”, Siegel added that she wanted “to show the world that in some of the darkest, loneliest and hard moments in your life, there can be so much love and support found. And that’s what I experienced on Saturday.”
She finished by saying that, although she’d “lost a great love”, she was “shown immense love, and I was surrounded by people who wanted to make me feel OK again and alive.”
