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As a little girl, I always used to dream about getting married. I grew up watching classic romantic comedy movies and envisioned myself having the perfect traditional wedding. My parents are older, so I always wanted to make sure they were there to see me walk down the aisle.
I met my former fiancé in November 2018. I'm from Swansea, Wales, and he was visiting some friends in the city to celebrate Beaujolais Day, a holiday where we usually get dressed up and drink lots of wine. The weekend before, I came first in a karaoke competition with my rendition of Man! I Feel Like a Woman! by Shania Twain and won a bar tab at one of the local clubs. Myself and my friends normally wouldn't go to this specific place, but decided to use the money we won. Who doesn't love a free drink?
During our night at the club, I met my ex-fiancé and we instantly hit it off. We had a great night together, our meeting felt really serendipitous. But because he lives in England, I never expected our relationship to go any further. However after exchanging numbers, he asked me to have breakfast with him the following day. He ended up staying in the city for an extra night just so he could take me for dinner that evening.
From the very beginning I viewed him as someone I could depend on. For example during one of our first nights together I needed face wipes to take my make-up off, so he drove to the shop to get me some in the middle of the night. I completely loved him from the start.
After a couple months of long-distance dating, he moved in with me. We decided to live together for a few months, then decide whether he would move to Wales from England permanently. We just went in for the kill and waited to see where the romance would go.
At the time, I believed the relationship was healthy. I felt we matched each other's personalities and pushed one another to strive for the best. We always laughed together and I thought he was the person I would spend the rest of my life with. No couple is perfect, but I thought he was perfect for me.
In July 2020, he moved back home for a month to find some work. I had been supporting the relationship financially for a little while, so he was really keen to get a new job, which I completely understood. Because we hadn't seen each other for a few weeks, that August he surprised me with a night date at a drive-in movie theater in London to watch A Star Is Born, which is my favorite movie.
He was planning on proposing that night, but because I was sobbing at the ending of the movie and had all mascara down my face, he thought it would be best to postpone it. A couple of days later, we drove to the seaside for a walk on the beach. But when we got back to the car, there was a box wrapped in fairy lights with all these little gifts inside. Alongside the presents were two notes; one describing his hopes for our future together and another which said: "Will you marry me?" I turned around and there he was with the ring. I immediately started crying and was just so excited to go home and tell my family about the engagement.
I don't feel that I once pushed him towards getting engaged. Throughout the relationship we often spoke about the possibility of getting married, but I never wanted to pressure him into it. As we started the wedding planning, my fiancé and I chose the menu, went to cake tastings, discussed themes and viewed the venue together.
To try and keep costs down, we did the decorations ourselves. My maid of honor is very good at crafts, so she spent hours putting together the center pieces and helped with all the table plans. My family members all got involved, my mom made the bouquet and the flower girl baskets. Overall the wedding cost £12,000, which is around $13,600.
Of course, leading up to the wedding, we both felt stressed. A lot of pressure goes into planning the day, but there was never a moment I saw that stress as unreasonable or more than expected. I thought I had good emotional intelligence; I felt I always knew when my fiancé was stressed and would regularly check he was okay. The whole way through planning, he would speak about life after the wedding, so I didn't see any warning signs of what was to come.
On the morning of the wedding, my nine bridesmaids and I woke up around 6.20 a.m. so we could start getting ready. We had breakfast with some mimosas and started enjoying the day. But at around 7 a.m. all my friends were sneaking off to different rooms, where I could hear them speaking in hushed tones.
I realized I didn't have my phone, so I asked my friend Hannah to help find it. I didn't know at the time, but she had taken it from me and hidden it down her bra so I wouldn't find out I had missed calls from my fiancé's mother. My bridesmaids wanted to tell me what was going on before anyone else could.
My maid of honor, Jordie, had discovered from her husband, who was one of my fiancé's groomsmen, that he had left the night before, claiming he wanted to spend the night with his family, but had not returned.
Eventually, my bridesmaids gave back my phone and told me that my fiancé was missing. I saw I had several calls from his mother, so I called her back straight away. She just broke down crying on the phone and said her son had gone for a walk during the early hours of the morning but had not returned. Even after I heard that, hand on heart, I thought he was still going to be at the wedding. I was still optimistic and hopeful.
Throughout the relationship, whenever we got stressed, we always took some time alone, which in my fiancé's case would normally involve going for a walk or drive to clear his head. So I thought that was what he was doing and told his groomsmen and family to keep setting up the venue. I told my bridesmaids to keep getting ready, assuring them he was going to be there. I asked them not to tell anyone else about the situation, I thought my fiancé would be coming back and didn't want my mom and dad to think less of him. While we got ourselves together, I contacted the groom's dad to tell him what was going on and to ask whether he could track his son down.
At 11 a.m., with an hour to go until the wedding, his father called me. Straight away, from his tone, I knew my fiancé wasn't coming back. His dad said he was safe, but that he was definitely not coming. He was almost four hours away from the venue. I sobbed uncontrollably as my bridesmaids broke the news to my parents. My dad is not a very emotional man, but when I saw him walking incessantly up and down the room in total silence, the reality of what was going on really started to sink in.
Because we were in an Airbnb, we had to leave at a certain time. I didn't want to be there all day crying, so I told everyone to keep getting ready and get our stuff down to the venue, without really thinking about what we were going to do. As my sister reapplied my make-up, she told me the photographer and the videographer had made a joke about me carrying on with the day, because they knew how much money I had spent and how much I was looking forward to it.
I had a bit of an "aha!" moment, I thought, why not? If I went to the venue, it would have to be in my dress anyway, because the only other clothes I had were pajamas. I had paid for the food, the drinks and the entertainment. My family had paid hundreds of pounds to come down from all over the country. Some people had traveled six or nine hours for the wedding, so I wanted them to still enjoy the day and not waste their money. My sister said: "Well they won't stay if you don't." So, I said: "Okay, I'm going to stay."
My brother came to pick me up and he was distraught, I'm his little sister so I think any older sibling would be angry at that point. When we got to the venue, in the back of my mind I was still hopeful the groom was going to be there, in some crazy way. But when we knew 100 percent he wasn't turning up, I told my maid of honor to go into the ceremony room and break the news to the guests. I didn't want to go inside, I never wanted to see where I would have become a wife.
We asked everybody to go out into the garden, so rather than walking down the aisle, I walked around the corner out of the building to meet my friends and family who had stayed. When I saw everyone standing there, obviously they looked upset, but I could see they were trying to push through their sadness for my sake.
After seeing my loved ones outside, my bridesmaids and I entered the party singing along to Good As Hell by Lizzo. I punched the top layer off my wedding cake and had my first dance with my brothers and my dad.
While it was really difficult for everyone involved, when I saw my guests I knew I was making the right choice. I hadn't seen some of my friends and family for years because of COVID-19, so I knew I was in a safe space. It was a choice between going to bed and sobbing or crying with my closest loved ones. I definitely made the right decision.
Since that day, I have spoken to my ex-fiancé, but not about the wedding. He contacted me to ask for his stuff back. He did apologize, but didn't ask how I was or offer an explanation for why he left. I just wish he had spoken to me before the wedding day if he was feeling nervous or upset. I would never try and convince someone to marry me or stay in a relationship, he is free to make his own choice. But for me, I do expect a level of respect. I wanted him to own his decision, because what hurt me the most was that he was not able to tell me face-to-face, or even over the phone.
When it comes to how I feel about him now, I have a lot of emotions. But, at the moment, I am thankful he left when he did, before we were actually able to get married or have children together. I'm a fighter, I never run away from things. If there's a storm, I will run straight into it, I don't back down. I want to face my fears head on and I feel now that he was not the type of partner to do that with me. I am still picking up the pieces, but I'm grateful he left me in a position where I could walk away with pride.
Kayley Stead, 27, lives in Swansea, Wales. You can follow her on Instagram at @kayleystead2206 or TikTok on @KayleyStead.
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
As told to Monica Greep.
