Jilted bride donates wedding reception to homeless families

A bride-to-be turned her groom’s cold feet into a hot meal for several homeless families.

When Dana Olsen’s fiancé backed out of their wedding six weeks before the big day, the Seattle native, who lives in California, was stunned – and stuck. It turns out her deadbeat ex-beau broke the engagement too close to the Jan. 16 wedding date to get a refund for their reception.

“Pretty much immediately I thought about the fact that my family had paid for almost the entire wedding, and I knew we wouldn’t be able to get most of it back,” Olson told KING5. “So after the shock of what had happened wore off, I started to think about what to do. It just felt really terrible and wasteful and awful to just have all that money and this beautiful event that wasn’t going to happen. I just couldn’t stand the thought of it being wasted.”

So Olsen and her mom, Karen, decided to hold the reception anyway, but invite a different set of guests – 150 homeless women and children who live at Mary’s Place Shelter in Seattle. The event was fully catered and featured a live band.

“She just wanted to marry the guy that she loved, and that’s not happening,” Karen Olsen told KOMO. “And if she can’t have that, she is very happy to share it with someone else.”

Dana, however, opted against attending the party herself. Instead, she went hiking with her dad, The Seattle Times reported.

“I love that hopefully a lot of people will have a really fun night,” Dana said. “I just want it to be really fun. I mean, if we can’t have a good night, I hope that they have a great time.”