Featured Image Credit: Kobus Louw/Peter Dazeley/ Getty
There's no nice way to discover that you're being cheated on - in fact, all the options are pretty much bad.
But can you imagine finding out moments before your wedding - that's surely one of the worst possible scenarios.
That's exactly what's sketched out in this viral essay from a few years ago, published in Body + Soul.
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The essay uses anonymized names to avoid compromising the privacy of those involved, and tells the devastating story of 'Casey and Alex', a couple who were on the eve of their wedding.
Casey narrates the essay, telling how she was having an indulgent time in the hotel with her bridesmaids the night before her wedding when her phone buzzed with an unexpected series of messages.
They were from an anonymous sender, but we can assume this might well have been the 'other woman' in what turned out to be a three-person mess.
The screenshots and photos showed months and months of intimate messages and photos swapped between Alex and this other woman. Casey was sure they weren't fabricated - and was immediately sent into an absolute tailspin.
Rather than calling off the wedding, Casey said she decided to sleep on the decision, and in the morning announced she wanted to go ahead with it.
This was a ruse to ensure that all the guests were present and correct when she dropped her bouquet at the front of the aisle to reveal her phone and shock everyone by reading from it.
She said that she read aloud every single message she was sent, and that Alex had no response whatsoever once it became clear just how much she knew, making for one of the most dramatic-sounding events we can ever imagine.
Perhaps most surprising of all, Casey said that the wedding didn't end there - while her relationship with Alex was immediately severed and the disgraced ex-fiancé' made himself scarce, she apparently successfully convinced a solid portion of the guests to stay with her and have a party anyway, in celebration of "honesty, finding true love and following your heart even when it hurts".
After all, anyone who's planned a wedding will know that the prospect of all that work going down the drain without any likelihood of refunds would be devastating.
So, while the finding out about the infidelity must have been horrific, there's a nice silver lining to this crazy story - Casey said they ended up having "one hell of a party".
