Better late than never.
A young bride from the Midwest wakes up next to her fiancé on the day of her planned $40,000 wedding and decides it's time to leave him.
Alexis Saya of Huntington, Indiana, went to bed the night before excited about what she expected would be a “beautiful” celebration of love.
But when the big day arrived, she found herself faced with a surprising realization. she wasn't happy.
The 24-year-old, who has a child with her future husband, said the two were high school sweethearts who started dating when they were 16.
According to Saya, the “young” and “stupid” couple intentionally got pregnant and got engaged in 2020, despite a turbulent marriage that saw them break up on numerous occasions.
It was a tumultuous romance that lasted from 2019 until their big day in April 2023 when they were called off.
“I knew I wasn't happy in the relationship,” she admitted. “I always tried to convince myself it was because I loved him.”
Finally, faced with the prospect of continued unhappiness, she took action.
“Around 6 a.m., I said, 'I'm sorry, I can't get married today,'” Saya told Kennedy News.
“I didn't want to, but I knew I had to do it,” she continued, adding, “Even though it's hard to accept, this is the best decision I've ever made. The relationship wasn't good.”
Saya has since shared some sordid details about the breakup with her TikTok audience of over 15,000 viewers. In one post she said, refer to She accused the child's father of being an “abuser.”
“After our daughter was born, we broke up several times and got back together several times,” Saya explained. “We broke up so many times that I think we wore rings a total of three or four times.”
“I said, 'I'm not getting married today,'” she recalled breaking the news to the groom, who was unconscious.
“He looked at me and was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ And I said, ‘Do you really think this is marriage?’”
The flounced bride's baby daddy wasn't the only fiancée blinded by a day of cheating.
Kayleigh Stead, a 27-year-old Welsh woman, was stunned and “sobbed” when her absent groom was left standing alone at the altar during her wedding in September 2022.
And abandoned bride Andrea Noel admitted she was “upset” after being handed a slip by her prospective groom the same month.
To enact virtual revenge, the content creator exploded drugs on social media and exposed his many shortcomings, including sharing a bed with his sister.
“I was so in love with him,” Noel said in the viral TikTok. “And I was convincing myself that [he] It was the best I could ever get. ”
After telling her the sad news, Saya and her daughter Avielle fled to her mother's house.
“I cried all day that day. It was terrible,” Saya said. “I had a harder time than he did. You're giving up everything you ever knew.”
“At the time I was a stay-at-home mom and didn't have anything,” she added. “I didn't have a job, I didn't have any money of my own. Everything was his.”
But what Saya feared most was the criticism she would receive from her family and friends, including her mother, who had shelled out five figures for the lavish feast.
“When you make a decision like that, you think everyone will hate you,” Saya said. “That's how I felt. My mom paid for my wedding and I thought I was going to lose her. It was scary.”
Immediately after calling off the wedding, the runaway bride is hit by a wave of regret.
“I remember thinking at about 3 p.m., 'I would be married by now,'” she said. “After the wedding, things got really bad.”
“I really couldn't believe I had made the decision. I probably regretted it a lot for a while,” Saya revealed.
“After that, I started to feel really glad I did it.”
She recently shared a series of selfies online.
The post is Recorded over 144,000 viewsfeatured a photo of her tear-stained face taken on the day of her canceled wedding. Another is a smiling snapshot labeled “16 months in”.
“It's a trauma that I think I'll always carry with me and always carry with me,” Saya said. “But I dealt with it and found ways to cope better.”
“I think this was absolutely the best decision for me and my daughter,” insists the mother, who credits her toddler with being the “biggest reason” she turned away from addiction.
“I started thinking that it was unfair if I couldn't do that for her,” Saya argued. “This is her only childhood, and I'll be in charge of it.”
However, it is still unclear why she ended the relationship on the day of the wedding.
“If I just say I left home on my wedding day, people think, 'She won't care, there's no way she can do anything,'” Saya scoffs. , clarified that the decision to cancel the bash was “horrible”.
“Even my own family said, 'Why did you wait?'” she says. “I went to sleep that night thinking that I was really going to wake up and get married.”
“I never would have chosen that day. I never did anything malicious towards him,” she vowed. “I didn't want to hurt him.”
Despite questions from confused critics, Saya's de facto supporters praised her “brave” actions.
She is now beginning to find peace after the storm.
“Every time I see him, I remember why I left,” Saya said.
“I always wonder, it's late at night and I'm in bed and I'm lonely and I think, 'Oh, I wish my family would come back,'” she says, adding that Time said this. In fleeting moments of sadness, she thinks only of the “good times” they had together.
“Then I saw him again, and I was reminded that the good outweighs the bad,” Saya said. “And that's why I left.”
Saya, who hopes to one day marry the perfect partner and have more children, encourages others to follow their hearts when it comes to matters of the heart.
“If you're wondering whether you should quit, I would tell anyone you should quit. It might be the best decision for you,” she said.
“Leaving is the hardest thing. I still can't believe what I did,” Saya said.
“I still have hard times, but I have to tell myself that I will find someone who will love me and my daughter,” she said.
“I can't wait to get married someday. I can't wait to have more kids.”
