Bride Asks 15 Men To Walk Her Down The Aisle At Her Wedding To Replace Her Dad Who She Helped Put In Jail
Her unconventional wedding shows that family has so many more definitions than just blood and genetics.
@karrahcreativeevents / TikTok Family drama and estrangements can be heartbreaking on the most average of days, let alone in those big life moments. One bride who is estranged from her father was determined not to let their dark history put a damper on her wedding, and the way she chose to do has touched hearts all over the internet.
The bride had 15 men walk her down the aisle in place of her estranged and abusive father.
Event planner Karrah (@karrahcreativeevents) shared clips from the bride's wedding to TikTok, where they have instantly gone viral and moved many to reach out to the bride, a Washington police officer named Ivy.
The glimpses of Ivy's recent wedding to her husband Tristan show her being escorted down the aisle by 15 different men, in lieu of the usual wedding tradition of having the bride's father do the duty of giving her away.
In onscreen text, the event planner shared that Ivy's retinue of aisle partners was composed of "the most important men in her life," including her brother and brother-in-law, uncles, childhood coaches, and a man who has had a particularly acute impact on her life.
The bride helped put her father in prison at 16, and the men who walked her down the aisle included the police officer who arrested him.
Captions on the video go on to describe how Ivy's father was abusive, and how she helped bring him to justice. "At 16, our bride played a pivotal role in ensuring her abusive father was put in prison," onscreen text reported.
Just like he was there for Ivy in her teens, the police officer who arrested her father was there for her on her wedding day too, included among the men who "stood by her side" and filled in her for her estranged father as she married her now-husband Tristan. Ivy is now a police officer herself, and her husband Tristan is a sheriff's deputy.
The video of Ivy's unconventional wedding left many viewers online deeply moved. "This is beautiful. I’m so grateful she has all these amazing men to show up for someone who couldn’t in the first place," one person on TikTok wrote.
The bride's story also highlights the importance of so-called "chosen family," sometimes called "fictive kin" — people we aren't related to but whom we choose to make part of our family to fill in for those that fail us or reject us. Mental health professionals say these relationships can be vitally important mechanisms for healing for people with difficult or estranged family relationships, particularly for LGBTQ+ people.
The bride has since discovered that her wedding story has gone viral, and has turned it into a message of hope for others in similarly difficult family situations.
"Just got off work and I just wanted to say thank you," Ivy said in a TikTok response to the outpouring of support and kind words her wedding video has inspired, and she expressed that she hoped her harrowing history and the way she's overcome it would inspire others.
"I want to share my journey with you, and I want to be able to keep encouraging you to push forward and stay strong," she said in her video. "We all have a story that shapes us. It does not define us, but shapes us and empowers us in ways to move forward."
"I want to be able to help you do that in the best way possible," she went on to say, and added that it was precisely the way others had shown up for her that inspired her to "show up every day for my community."
It just goes to show how important it is to show up for each other, and that there are far more definitions of "family" than mere genetics can ever speak to.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.