Five Saint Mary’s students decided to dress up for Halloween as a ’90s themed bridal party, and in a span of two days, pictures of the students and their costumes were featured by BuzzFeed, Cosmopolitan, Elite Daily and HelloGiggles.
The original BuzzFeed article, published Nov. 1, “A Group of College Friends Dressed Up As 90s Bridal Party For Halloween And Had A Fake Wedding,” features the students posing for wedding pictures in their costumes and describing what they did to mimic a wedding.
One of the “bridesmaids,” junior Claire Condon said junior Bridget Hogan, the “bride,” originally thought of the idea two weeks before Halloween, and the group of friends unanimously agreed to it.
“They all went to the Salvation Army and St. Vincent’s, and they bought the most ridiculous dresses,” Condon said. “I said to pick me something ugly. It was like a real wedding day. We were counting down the days like it was real.”
Condon explained that when the girls were getting ready for the “wedding,” she decided to start documenting the experience. She took more than 150 pictures that resembled typical wedding day events and posted them on social media sites.
“We all have the same monogram glasses, and we all have the same matching robes with the monograms on them,” she said. “Then we went down to the chapel, and we all went down the aisle, took pictures and came back. Everyone at the party thought our costumes were hilarious. We were like celebrities.”
“I put it up as if it were a real album,” Condon said. “I made the album public, only friends of friends could see it, but that’s how all those sites got ahold of all the pictures, too. I went out on a whim, went on Buzzfeed, clicked on the viral page and just clicked the writer’s name [Stephanie McNeal]. I had no idea who she was or anything about her, but I just sent her an email.”
Condon explained that after pitching the idea to BuzzFeed, she heard back a day later, and then she and the lead writer exchanged emails.
“Next thing I know, I got an email back from her saying thanks, with a link to BuzzFeed attached. We were all cracking up, and we shared it. We were saying, ‘We peaked, look at us,’” Condon said.
Condon said people on the Internet were not all supportive of the costume.
“Some people were very mean on the comments — they said things like, ‘These girls know nothing about the ’90s,’ ‘They desecrated a church,’ and that our cats must have been busy,” Condon said.
Condon said the story, which reached the No. 9 trending story on BuzzFeed and had gotten 100,000 views in one day, was a fun albeit strange experience.
“The whole thing was very unreal; it snowballed. It’s bizarre. I keep laughing about it,” she said.
