Michelle Marxen, 26, is a pediatric nurse from Fargo, N.D. (Facebook photo courtesy of Michelle Marxen)
Posted on 10/15/2013 5:52:02 PM PDT by rhema
A jilted bride is experiencing a different sort of happy ending than the one she was expecting.
But first, the heartbreak:
"I got the phone call on Aug. 10," said Michelle Marxen, 26, a pediatric nurse from Fargo, N.D.
Her fiance was on the other line; the news was not good.
By the time the betrothed said goodbye, their wedding -- set for Oct. 19 -- was off.
"It's hard to explain why, because I never really got an explanation," Marxen says.
First, she grieved.
"I went through the 'Whys?' and the uncontrollable crying," Marxen says.
After she dried her tears, the jilted bride realized that breaking up with the wedding vendors could not be accomplished with a mere phone call.
"Contracts are contracts," Marxen says.
Marxen and her parents -- who were funding the wedding and reception for 275 to 300 guests -- talked it over.
"It had to be paid for," says the bride's mother, Julie Marxen. "So we're, like, 'If it has to be paid for, why doesn't somebody use it?' That's how it all started."
"We wondered how we could turn this into something positive," Marxen says.
The answer came through helping others: Specifically, by donating the reserved Ramada ballroom reception site in Fargo, N.D., and the food budget -- even the wedding photographer and the photo booth -- to Creative Care for Reaching Independence (CCRI), a nonprofit based in Moorhead, Minn., that serves people with disabilities. The estimated value of this gift is close to five figures.
"The bride's mother called me and told me, 'We have this venue reserved, but the wedding won't happen; would you be able to use it? And the food? And two photographers for 10 hours? And a limousine?" says Jody Hudson, development director for CCRI. "As she kept adding things, I couldn't believe it."
After the shock, she accepted.
"Who doesn't like a good party?" Hudson says.
Instead of a wedding reception on Oct. 19, the ballroom was scheduled to be rocking out with a Halloween party for CCRI's clients and their families.
"Most of the people we serve are on a very limited income," Hudson says. "This is something many of them have never done before, to go to a fancy party in a crystal ballroom."
"I heard that one client was so excited that he immediately put on his Halloween costume," Marxen says. "That put a smile on my face. I think it was the start of my healing process."
Marxen said she wouldn't be attending the party. She and her parents planned to fly to Las Vegas to visit a friend.
"To get my mind off my wedding," Marxen says. "I hope to be lying by a pool on Saturday."
Marxen's happy ending isn't really about the Vegas sun, though; it's about how she changed her story -- a story that has since gone viral after a local television station first told the public about her gift.
"I don't want this to be a story about someone breaking my heart," Marxen says. "It's a story about making something really good out of something really bad that happened to me."
Pretty, but those glasses look photoshopped.
I posted a couple of weeks ago about a couple in ... Georgia? Alabama? ... whose daughter’s wedding was cancelled. They held the reception anyway and invited several hundred homeless men, women and children.
That’s a nice story, and I wish the girl well, but the headline made me expect to read she had found a new love or new way of life. My sympathies to her for that disappointment, but better the fiancé be honest now, than later, when there is shared property or a new baby.
Still not guilty, IMHO.
Best to have him break it off now if he is having doubts. It would be even more heartbreaking were he to do it after they are married, maybe even cheat on her.
I’m Available! What a Babe?
That was a great idea they had, I hope everyone has a great time.
And as for some bum who would break an engagement over the phone, what can I say? Honey, you are better off without him!
But as a father, I would also tell her “The next wedding, you get $300”.
Something else must be wrong with her. She wasn’t dumped for her looks.
jilted over the phone? wow...
My ex cancelled 13 days before our 1st wedding date.
Stupid me married the louse 14 months later!!
Divorced 6 years almost to the day later and much better for it.
Seven years later, married the man I was meant to marry. 21 years of happiness this January!!
Hopefully this jilted bride will find her true mate sooner
Compare the way this lady handled her breakup to the way this hag handled being rejected after the SECOND DATE:
http://thedailybanter.com/2013/09/warning-all-men-in-dc-do-not-date-quin-woodward-pu/
I have all the respect in the world for Miss Marxen. The other “lady”? Not so much.
Everything happens for a reason...one door closes, so another will open.
Sounds a bit like the Salinger novel, “Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters.”
One of the few people besides myself who read that book :-)
Someone missed an angel. Things happen for a reason.. d:^)
I believe that multitudes have read that book - but not who are on FR.
Betcha she is very happily married to a real man within 15 months.
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