On July 20, 2021, a new and heartwarming TikTok video began to go viral. It showed a man surprising his wife in a movie theater with their long-lost wedding video on their 14th wedding anniversary. "A surprise 14 years in the making," wrote Drew Gottfried, who surprised his wife, Kayla.
She thought she was coming to the theater to see a movie, and had never seen their wedding video until then. After their wedding, they were told that it "had been accidentally erased."
Only 12 hours after the surprise wedding tape video was posted to TikTok, it had already been viewed nearly 300,000 times. The video's captions read as follows:
This is my wife, Kayla. Today is our 14th wedding anniversary. She has never seen a video of our wedding ceremony. We were told shortly after our wedding that the video had been accidentally erased.
A couple of months ago a friend found the video with a bunch of old tapes at our church and gave it to me! I rented a theater and asked if they could play it for me instead of a movie.
She has no idea what is about to play and thinks we are just here to see one of her favorite movies together. Let's see her reaction to what we thought was lost forever.
As for how the tape originally got lost, Gottfried commented: "The person who originally recorded it for us worked at the church. I think it got switched on accident somehow." Luckily, it was later found.
In the TikTok clip, she appeared to be both shocked and elated. Gottfried described her reaction to the wedding video as "pure happiness," saying it was definitely a "successful surprise."
One of the top comments said: "Now I'm sitting on the toilet at 7:30 a.m. CRYING!"
Another person remarked: "Good job. Now show us some of that wedding video!" Others said it made them tear up as well: "Sir, it's 5:00 a.m. You can't have me cutting onions this early."
Gottfried also posted a second video about the surprise wedding tape, saying it had been a wild few hours after uploading the movie theater clip to TikTok. "All right guys. This has been a crazy morning," he said. "I posted that video because I knew our friends and family would enjoy it, but I had no idea you guys would love it so much. I will get a snippet of the ceremony posted soon."
A third video later went up on TikTok that showed the end of their wedding ceremony:
We reached out to the couple and congratulated them on their anniversary, asking if we could learn more about the surprise wedding video moment. We will update this story if we receive a response.