Jenny Ly Wedding: Disappointed Bride Turns Canceled Wedding Into Cancer Fundraiser, Makes Lemonade Out Of Lemons

Imagine that you’re a bride and that you’ve invested several thousand non-refundable dollars in your wedding. Now imagine that, before the wedding, your relationship with the groom goes south. What are you going to do? If you’re Jenny Ly of southern California, you turn those lemons into lemonade, as the old saying goes, and use your wedding venue and date to throw a fundraiser for cancer research.

As NBC Los Angeles reports, Jenny Ly had sunk $5,000 – non-refundable – into securing the Clubhouse of the La Mirada Country Club in Santa Fe Springs for her wedding.

The Lovely & Affordable La Mirada Country Club…. Let’s start planning your weddinghttp://t.co/CM14kvqtrC#marriage pic.twitter.com/voUSJ12pdH

— EnchantingEngagement (@eewedding) April 9, 2014

Unfortunately for Jenny, her relationship with her boyfriend didn’t pan out – she’s not saying why, and let’s face it, that’s private – and it looked like she was going to be out the five grand.

“I could have just cried myself to sleep every night. But I’m trying to turn this bad situation into something else.”

Having no boyfriend and being $5,000 in the hole, Jenny decided to make the best of a bad situation. She’s had some friends and loved ones in her life who have battled cancer, so the disappointed bride figured she’d go ahead and use her expensive venue to hold a cancer fundraiser. She’s teamed up with Relay For Life, a fundraising arm of the American Cancer Society, to help make it happen and to collect the donations.

As of this writing, plans for the cancer fundraiser, to be held August 28, are still coming together. Tickets will be $25 in advance or $30 at the door, and the event will feature stand-up comedy, raffles, dancing, and a buffet. Jenny is hoping her friends can come up with a way to incorporate a redundant bridal shower into the event as well.

“I’m trying to be positive and a good sport about the whole thing. I don’t want anyone to feel bad for me. Everything happens for a reason, and it’s better that we didn’t go through with it.”

It’s not clear how many tickets will be sold to Jenny’s fundraiser. And it’s also not clear if her ex-boyfriend is planning on attending.

Jenny says that her family and friends have been supportive of her during this difficult time, and have been on-board with her decision to do something positive with the money she’s poured into her canceled wedding instead of letting it go to waste.

This is not the first time a canceled wedding has been turned into a fundraiser.

Back in 2014, according to People, groom Phil Laboon found himself $15,000 in the hole in wedding planning and no bride to show for it.

“Things just didn’t work out for one reason or another and I ended up calling off the wedding pretty last-minute.”

Laboon turned lemons into lemonade somewhat literally by naming his fundraiser LemonAID, and raising money for Surgicorp, a charity that provides free surgery in developing countries.

In an ironic twist, Laboon’s fundraiser may have actually helped out his love life: not long after the news of his fundraiser broke, he got several hundred Facebook friend requests from women young and old. The older ones, he said, were moms and grandmothers trying to set him up with their own daughters and granddaughters.

For Jenny Ly, she says she’s learned a valuable lesson from the experience: “Make sure you’re really sure about getting married before you sign a contract!”

[Image via Shutterstock/Leon Rafael]