Bride-to-be calls off ‘dream’ wedding at last minute and donates £2.5k venue to couple she’s never met

A bride-to-be called off her engagement a week before her wedding then donated her “dream” wedding venue to total strangers.

Kolbie Sanders, a 24-year-old university student, split from her fiancé Skylar Cotton shortly before the wedding. But she turned her heartbreak into generosity by offering up her £2,500 venue to a couple she had never met.

She took to Facebook to reveal that she had just 24 hours to find a couple prepared to get married at the wedding venue. She was immediately inundated with messages from hundreds of grooms-to-be and brides-to-be desperate to win her wedding venue.

Kolbie, from Lindale in Texas, US, eventually picked a winner and the lucky bride was Halie Hipsher, 22, and Matthew Jones, 24.

Insurance worker Halie’s was given the venue because her story stood out. Her grandfather Edwin Truett Hipsher, 81, is suffering from pancreatic cancer and doesn’t have long to live. Halie said he is nearing his end and the wedding venue donation will put them a year ahead of schedule and he will be able to attend.

Halie, a new mom, will wed Matthew Jones, an oil field worker, at the Belle Vue wedding venue in Tyler, Texas, this Saturday. And touchingly, Kolbie will be guest of honour.

Hallie and Matthew

Kolbie, a student at the University of Texas at Tyler, called off her own wedding to Skylar, 25, an oil well worker, when she realised the passion had left their relationship.

Kolbie and Skylar

She said:

There was no scandal. We fell out of love and it didn’t feel right to get married. We were together for four years and engaged for one and a half years but we grew apart.

I woke up one day and realised I didn’t want to marry him. We had both lost passion for one another.

It was short notice but you can’t get married if you feel it won’t work out in the long run.

The venue told me that I could still get married there at some point in the future and keep my booking but by that point I thought, ‘I’d like another couple to enjoy it’.

Skylar and I are still really good friends and he was on board with me donating the venue.