Brides

When Austin Dunsmuir sat down to write wedding day letters to each of his bride Mikayla’s loved ones, he wasn’t aiming for viral fame—he simply wanted to honor the people who had helped shape the woman he was about to marry. But the powerful gesture, captured in a TikTok that has since touched millions, revealed the depth of his love and emotional intelligence in a way few wedding traditions do.

“I’m going to try not to get emotional,” Mikayla Dunsmuir told PEOPLE, reflecting on the moment she first learned of Austin’s surprise. “He really appreciates these amazing (people) that are in my life now.” The recipients included not just bridesmaids, but also both sets of parents, Mikayla’s grandmother, the couple’s ring bearers, and the maid of honor.

Austin’s idea came after seeing how deeply Mikayla’s inner circle poured into her during her bridal year. “I was like, I really want to do something special for them for the wedding,” Mikayla recalled. “And he was like, ‘What if I wrote them something from my perspective of your friendship and it’s a surprise?’”

Mikayla described the emotional scene as the letters were opened. “Everyone opened the letter from Austin at the same time,” she told them, wanting to witness their collective reaction. “I was just happy seeing them be so emotional toward our relationship and toward him.”

One of the most poignant letters was to Mikayla’s father, read aloud at the wedding. “Austin grew up without a father, so my dad has been like the closest thing to a father for him,” Mikayla explained. “We wanted to make a moment of the day about him and let everyone know how much we love him.”

Reflecting on the experience, Mikayla shared, “He’s honestly just such a kind-hearted, selfless angel... I love that some people are getting to see that now because he’s a very private person.” The letters didn’t just move the recipients—they strengthened lifelong bonds and left an indelible mark on their wedding day.

Potential Preaching Angle:

Love gives honor to the parents and family who laid our foundation.

A beautiful wedding does not a wonderful marriage make. We know that and yet many couples get drawn into the business of weddings and the price tag can create a burden and stress for years. According to The Knot, the average cost of a wedding in 2022 was $30,000, including the ceremony and reception.

Just for reference, warehouse workers, nursing assistants and shuttle drivers make less than $36,000 a year on average. You also could buy a new car for $30,000 or pay for the cost of tuition, housing, and meal plan at a major university for the same price. There is also a massive cost burden for attendees. According to The Balance it costs individual members of a bridal party more than $700 to attend a wedding, including travel, accommodations, and clothing.

But, hey, you can always read up on the dozens of articles highlighting how to save money when planning a wedding … such as “open a new savings account earmarked just for the wedding.” Is that what we have allowed the industry to push us toward? Opening a new savings account just to finance a wedding?

Possible Preaching Angle:

Maybe it is time for us all to rethink our cultural obsession with elaborate weddings – and the staggering financial behemoth it has created.

A couple's destination wedding was almost in jeopardy when their dog, Chickie, chewed up the groom's passport just days before the wedding. Donato Frattaroli and Magda Mazri connected five years prior when Magda worked at Donato’s restaurant. After three years of friendship, the couple began dating, and eventually began to plan their dream wedding at a destination in Italy, where they both have family and friends.

After eighteen months of planning and preparation, it seemed like everything was set. But just days before departure, Chickie ruined everything by chewing up Donato’s passport.

“It’s hard to describe," said Donato when he first saw the damaged passport. "It’s not like all the joy left me, but it was definitely panic.” Magda laughs when remembering the incident, because she had to act quickly to ensure their plans would stay intact. She says Donato is usually the calm one, but on that day she was able to put into practice everything she’d learned from their relationship, and quickly took charge.

They explored the possibility of obtaining a same-day passport, but the availability of appointments proved to be a major hurdle. They were willing to travel anywhere in the country to secure a passport, but with the help of local officials, managed to secure an appointment in their hometown of Boston several days later.

Reflecting on the passport ordeal, the couple found perspective during a complicated journey home after their honeymoon in France. They encountered missed flights, cancellations, and a challenging return to Boston via Amtrak. Through these trials, they learned to adapt and pivot, a valuable lesson for their journey together as a married couple.

Possible Preaching Angle:

When mishaps occur, accidents take place, or circumstances turn tragic, God is capable of supernaturally transforming our tragedies into triumph--and even if they don't work out the way we want, God will always remain with us.

In his book, Beautiful People Don’t Just Happen, Pastor Scott Sauls writes:

During rehearsal, I always warn bridesmaids to keep their knees slightly bent while standing during the ceremony. The combination of high heels and locked knees limits oxygen flow to the brain, which dramatically increases the possibility of fainting. Over the years, five bridesmaids have forgotten my instructions and fainted.

Thankfully, I did not need to be the first responder in any of these fainting incidents. Each time, medical professionals have left their seats and rush toward the fallen bridesmaid to tend to her. Each time, they successfully resuscitated her, enabling us to finish the ceremony with the bridesmaid restored to her honored place, but now with her knees dutifully and carefully bent. At the end of the ceremony, when the last hymn is played and the bride and groom walk the aisle together, the bridesmaid sings. No longer falling on the ground, she is also able to join the bride, groom, and guests for the dancing and feasting.

God’s response to our sin is not unlike that of a medical professional to a fallen bridesmaid. Not only is it within his ability to awaken and restore us to our honored place, not only is it within his ability to put a new song in our mouths, it is also within his very nature to do so. With resolve, he gets out of his seat and tends to us on the ground where we have fallen. He breathes life into us as he tends to us in our weakest, most humiliating, and most vulnerable places. He lifts us up off the ground and invites us to sing of his love, and take our honored seat at the marriage feast.

Luke Winkie writes on Vox.com:

Jen Glantz is there for women on the biggest day of their lives—for about $2,000 a wedding. The 31-year-old entrepreneur has been a professional bridesmaid since 2015, working dozens of ceremonies each year around the country. She's a dear friend for a day, not a wedding planner. Glantz says, “I'm not going to be able to pick your flowers or taste your cake with you.” Instead, she specializes in energizing the dance floor, distracting problem relatives, and above all, comforting the bride. “You're running around putting fires out. You'll clock 30,000 steps in one wedding.” Some clients have suffered a recent falling-out with a bridesmaid and need a quick fill-in, while others just don't have enough close friends.

About three-quarters of the time, brides ask Glantz to make up a fake name and backstory—she usually claims to be a friend from some obscure hobby. Glantz launched her company, Bridesmaid for Hire, in 2015 after serving as a civilian bridesmaid in her 20s for numerous friends. “That got me thinking that if I could do this for friends, I could do it for the wedding industry.” She now has a team of pro bridesmaids but rejects any applicants who emphasize how much they love to party. Glantz says of the job, “It's not a party, it's an emotional roller coaster.”

As a mental health counselor and dating consultant, Samantha Burns knows a thing or two about successful relationships. And this self-proclaimed "millennial love expert" stands by her advice to wear your wedding dress wherever and whenever you want. (Seriously!) "I've always been passionate about love and relationships," Burns told TODAY. "They are what bring us so much joy in this world." And for her, wearing that most-special dress every anniversary is what will keep the romance alive.

It all started on the night of her wedding when Burns said she couldn't accept the idea of wearing her favorite gown only once in her life. That's when she turned to her husband and declared she'd be donning her most-beloved article of clothing every year on their Aug. 10 anniversary.

"He thought I was joking when I first told him," she said. "When he surprised me with a trip for our first anniversary, I told him to make sure I'd be able to wear my dress to whatever we were doing. He laughed, but I brought the dress along with me." So on her first anniversary she word her wedding dress while hitting balls on the driving range. On her third anniversary she wore it on a sunset cruise on Boston Harbor. "It was a Wednesday night," she said, "so we had the dance floor to ourselves with live music—it felt like a mini-wedding all over again!"

Like most brides (and most grooms too!), Burns may discover she can't fit into her wedding clothes year after year. But Burns maintains that this isn't just about her wedding "dress-capades"; it's about couples cultivating their own traditions that make for a happy, everlasting union.

Possible preaching angles: 1) Love; Marriage; Romance; Valentine's Day - This illustration will encourage married couples to devise creative ways to remind themselves of their own love story. 2) Christ, love of; Church, bride of Christ;-Believers should also celebrate the memory of our affection for our Savior and how we entered a love relationship with Him.

Every little girl dreams of the day she gets to walk down the aisle in a white dress toward her "Prince Charming." But when a "Prince Charming" didn't come along for Italian fitness trainer Laura Mesi, she decided to forget that piece and move along with her big day anyway. In a ceremony that was not actually legally binding, the woman said "I do" to herself, in front of bridesmaids, 70 guests, and a 3-layer wedding cake. "I firmly believe that each of us must first of all love ourselves," said Mesi. "You can have a fairytale even without the prince." Her near-lavish wedding seemed to prove it. But she went on to admit, "If one day I find a man with whom I can plan a future I'll be happy, but my happiness does not depend on him." Proponents of the growing trend (dubbed "sologamy") say it is not necessarily about feminism, but about celebrating and embracing those who have not found the social affirmation of marriage.

Potential Preaching Angles: While it may be possible to have "a fairytale without a prince," how mistaken we would be to forget that we already have a Prince in our love story. Indeed our happiness cannot depend on other humans, but neither can it depend on ourselves alone. Love for oneself and love for others both come from something much, much greater—God's immeasurable love for us.

When America went to war after Pearl Harbor, many couples married rapidly as men were drafted into the armed services. In a typical scenario, a young woman at the time, became engaged to her beau who subsequently shipped out with the Navy before they could have a wedding. They weren't able to marry until they had enough leave to come home. She and her mother planned the wedding down to the last detail. They even printed the wedding invitations, but the left the date off. They didn't know when the bridegroom would be able to make it, so they waited at the ready. Finally, after eighteen long months, a telegram came that said, "You should get the white dress you've been wanting." The groom was on his way. They wrote by hand and send off the invitations.

We know who our bridegroom is; we just don't know when he's going to appear.

A young bride to be was very nervous on the day before her wedding, so she went to speak with her minister. "I'm afraid I might not make it through the ceremony properly," she confessed.

The minister assured her that everything would be fine: "When you enter the church tomorrow and the processional begins, you will be walking down the same aisle you've walked many times before. Concentrate on that aisle. When you get halfway down the aisle, you'll see the altar, where you and your family have worshiped for many years. Concentrate on that altar. Then, when you're almost to the altar, you will see your groom, the one you love. Concentrate on him."

The bride was relieved, and left to prepare for her big moment. The next day, she walked down the aisle with her chin up and eyes bright—a beautiful, confident bride. But those along the center were a bit surprised to hear her muttering over and over: "Aisle, altar, him. Aisle, altar, him."

Deborah Hale wants to sell her home—and she's willing to cut a deal that includes herself as part of the transaction. At 48, the Albuquerque native says she has a hard time meeting single men her age. The jewelry business owner decided to advertise her home, in the Washington Park section of Denver, as an added incentive for prospective husbands. Since that time, she has had as many as 15,000 hits per hour on the web site she established.

Ms. Hale acknowledges that she won't discount a prospective suitor who isn't interested in the home, but makes it clear that for the right man, she "could become part of the deal." This high-tech approach to courtship takes the biblical injunction to "let marriage be held in honor among all" to an entirely new—and pricey—level.

Joni Eareckson Tada, who was paralyzed in a diving accident as a teenager, draws parallels between her wedding day, and Christ's love for his church.

I felt awkward as my girlfriends strained to shift my paralyzed body into a cumbersome wedding gown. No amount of corseting and binding my body gave me a perfect shape. The dress just didn't fit well. Then, as I was wheeling into the church, I glanced down and noticed that I'd accidentally run over the hem of my dress, leaving a greasy tire mark. My paralyzed hands couldn't hold the bouquet of daisies that lay off-center on my lap. And my chair, though decorated for the wedding, was still a big, clunky gray machine with belts, gears, and ball bearings. I certainly didn't feel like the picture-perfect bride in a bridal magazine.

I inched my chair closer to the last pew to catch a glimpse of Ken in front. There he was, standing tall and stately in his formal attire. I saw him looking for me, craning his neck to look up the aisle. My face flushed, and I suddenly couldn't wait to be with him. I had seen my beloved. The love in Ken's face had washed away all my feelings of unworthiness. I was his pure and perfect bride.

How easy it is for us to think that we're utterly unlovely—especially to someone as lovely as Christ. But he loves us with the bright eyes of a Bridegroom's love and cannot wait for the day we are united with him forever.

Tedd Kidd was five years older than Janet, finished college before her, and started to work in a city hundreds of miles from her. They always seemed to be at different places in their lives. But they had been dating for seven years.

Every Valentine's Day, Tedd proposed to her. Every Valentine's Day, Janet would say, "No, not yet."

Finally, when they were both living in Dallas, Texas, Tedd reached the end of his patience. He bought a ring, took Janet to a romantic restaurant, and was prepared to reinforce his proposal with the diamond. Another "No" would mean he had to get on with his life without her.

After salad, entree, and dessert, it was time. Tedd summoned up his courage. Knowing that Janet had a gift for him, however, he decided to wait. "What did you bring me?" he asked. She handed him a box the size of a book. He opened the package and slowly peeled away the tissue paper. It was a cross-stitch Janet had made that simply said, "Yes."

Yes: it is the word that God, in his tireless pursuit of the sinner, longs to hear.

I was watching my 5-year-old granddaughter Christy play with her dolls. At one point, she "staged" a wedding, first playing the role of the bride's mother who assigned specific duties, then suddenly becoming the bride with her "teddy bear" groom.

She picked him up and said to the "minister" presiding over the wedding, "Now you can read us our rights." Without missing a beat, Christy became the minister who said, "You have the right to remain silent, anything you say may be held against you, you have the right to have an attorney present. You may kiss the bride."