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."
I know this because my wife was a qualified school teacher from London, England. If it wasn't for her pension we would both be up the proverbial creek in Canada.
Lovely smile, lovely person. Wish her well in the future. We need more generous people like her who can turn adversity into something positive for others.
I think a girl who is that cute, is smart enough to become a pediatric nurse, and is kind enough to think of others when her heart was broken, will someday find someone more worthy of her. As others have said, better that the fiancé broke things off now. The day will come when she’s glad she didn’t end up with someone who’s not enraptured with her. Girls: never marry someone who isn’t desperate to marry you. Never try to drag a man to the altar.
lol, my guess would be there is something wrong with the guy who breaks an engagement over the phone. She’s a lucky girl.
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