What do you do when the groom gets cold feet and bails on a $35,000 wedding? If you're the Duanes—whose daughter nearly became the bride—you open the doors of a fancy hotel and invite the homeless to eat all of your wedding food, 14 News reports. "When I found out Monday that the wedding would not be taking place, it just seemed like, of course this would be something that we would do to give back," says the near-bride's mom, Kari Duane. So the ritzy restaurant at the Citizen Hotel in Sacramento was opened to the unfortunate on Saturday, KCRA reports. The first attendee was an elderly woman living in a shelter, and then came others, including families with children and even newborns in tow.
"When you’re going through a hard time and (it's) a struggle for you to get out to do something different and with your family, it was really a blessing," says Rashad Abdullah, who came with his family. As they enjoyed high-end fare such as salmon and gnocchi, his wife was thinking of the Duanes: "To lose out on something so important to yourself and then give it to someone else is really giving, really kind," she said. Indeed, Kari Duane was well aware that her daughter had stayed home and the dream of a 120-guest wedding was shattered, WWLP reports. "I feel a lot of heartache and heartbreak for her, but I will take away something good from this—I will," she says. And the mom and daughter were going on the non-refundable honeymoon to Belize together. (A just-wed paramedic stopped at an accident scene to help, resulting in this amazing photo.)
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