On September 15, 2022, Kayley Stead arrived at the Oxwich Bay Hotel in Gower, Swansea, Wales, surrounded by family and friends, ready for her wedding the next day. Their bags were packed with party dresses and jewels for the big celebration. On the morning of her wedding, Kayley was woken by her makeup artist and hairdresser, ready to start the day. But as her makeup was applied and rollers curled her hair, her phone rang with devastating news: her partner of four years had walked out, and there would be no wedding, according to The Mirror.
The night before the wedding, Kayley and her family stayed at an Airbnb while the groom, Kallum Norton, stayed in a nearby caravan with his friends and family. The couple had agreed not to speak until the wedding to maintain some mystery around their plans. But as Kayley would soon learn, Kallum had left the caravan the night before—and now, he was gone.
Representative Image Source: A bride getting ready with her bridesmaid before her wedding ceremony (Getty Images)
According to Metro, Kayley didn’t panic at that point, knowing that her partner had a habit of going on long drives or walks while he felt nervous. She was sure that her groom would return. But he never did. Another call from Kallum’s dad shattered even the little remnants of hope she had. An hour before the wedding ceremony, Kallum’s dad called her and said that he was four hours away, and would not return or attend the wedding.
Representative Image Source: Sad lonely gen z girl lying on sofa with phone, scrolling social media, Internet addiction, wasting time. (Getty Images)
Frozen in cold disbelief, Kayley informed everyone around her. But first, she needed to accept the reality of the situation herself. As shock lifted off and grief settled in, Kayley’s makeup washed down in puddles of tears. "It was an absolute shock, I had no indication he was going to do this but seeing my girls distraught as well made me want to turn the day around,” she said, per The Mirror. "I didn't want to remember the day as complete sadness.” She said that “it didn't feel like a real-life situation,” but rather like an episode of “Hollyoaks or EastEnders.”
To lighten up the heavy mood, the videographer present at the venue said, “Why don’t you carry on, girls? You’ve spent all this money, you’re not getting it back, all your guests are there, why don’t you just go?” That’s when a bulb lit up in Kayley’s head. “That’s when I was like, I’m going to do it. I’d spent all this money, I’d been looking forward to the food, a dance with my dad, and spending time with my family, so why not?”
Representative Image Source: Cheerful young bride dancing in front of guests during wedding reception at night (Getty Images)
With courage and pride, Kayley decided to celebrate the day anyway, groom or no groom. She ditched her heartache just the same way her groom had ditched her and went ahead to turn the devastating day into an unforgettable episode of happy memories.
She stepped inside the party room and sang Lizzo’s “Good As Hell,” which was soon joined by her bridesmaids. She scooped out creamy hunks from her tiered wedding cake and danced the night out with her bridal party and groomsmen who had stayed at the venue. The photo booth, which originally carried the label “Mr and Mrs” was transformed with a sign that read “Kayley’s Shindig.” “There were so many special moments, like my wedding entrance, the sparkler walk, the first dance and punching the wedding cake. There was still happiness in the day,” she told Metro. As planned for the original wedding, the photographer snapped some gorgeous photos of the celebration. “You can probably see a few tear streaks down my face, but I love the photos.”
After the celebration came the weighty moment to adjust her mind to her new situation. She canceled her tickets to Turkey, where she and Kallum were to go on their honeymoon, which of course, never happened. Besides, when The Sun caught up with Kallum, who is now a PC (police constable) with Gwent Police, he dismissed the topic altogether by saying, “I don’t want to talk about the article.” Given that he was the one who initially proposed to Kayley for the wedding, this is just heart-wrenching and over the top, wrong. Heartbroken by this explanation, Kayley said, “I don’t expect anything different, but I do expect someone to own their actions and be responsible for what they did.”
Representative Image Source: Blondhaired woman using smart device in garden, face is lit by the tablet screen. (Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Kayley’s friends started a GoFundMe page to help her recover the finances she spent to organize the 12,000-pound wedding. Till now, 732 people have shown support with money totaling £13,335 ($17,840). Jordie Cullen, a friend of Kayley wrote on the page, “Kayley has a heart of gold and would do anything for anyone. She always puts others' needs before her own,” and added that "she did not deserve to be left on the morning of her wedding day with no explanation and zero contact from the groom.”
You can follow Kayley Stead (kayleystead2206) on Instagram for more updates on her life.
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.