The night before her wedding last year, Chloe Hayden visited her venue. But the bride-to-be had no idea her special day would include a high-stakes rescue to save four fluffy babies hiding nearby.
It all started that night, when a member of Hayden’s bridal party, Gem Hayden, spotted the fuzzy head of a stray kitten poking out from under an old barn on the wedding venue’s property.
“[H]e was absolutely tiny, absolutely terrified, and we made it our absolute mission to befriend him,” Hayden wrote on Instagram.
Suddenly, the bride’s focus shifted from wedding events to luring out the tiny kitten. The bridal party was unsuccessful that night, but when they returned the next morning, they brought multiple cans of tuna and kitten food to entice the stray out of hiding.
The bride desperately wanted to help the kitten before tying the knot: “The whole morning of the wedding, I’d be taking breaks from hair and makeup and getting dressed in order to go and lay under the barn and find him again,” Hayden said. “Though, despite having checked the entire venue a dozen times before the ceremony … the kitten had disappeared.”
The wedding continued without a hitch, but the bride and groom remained preoccupied. What happened to the little kitten under the barn? Were there more down there with him?
After a few more failed attempts at coaxing the kitten from his hiding place, they decided to leave more tuna and kitten food out overnight and return the next day. But when they arrived at the barn the following morning, they were stumped — the food they’d left out handn’t been touched.
Hayden and her husband checked the barn a dozen more times with no luck, and they soon started to lose hope of ever seeing the kitten again. They decided to leave the venue once and for all, but as they were driving out, Hayden had a sudden change of heart.
“I decided to walk back one more time just as we were driving out, praying on the way, ‘God, I know it’s a silly request. I know you’ve got much bigger stories to write. But, would it not be the most perfect end to the most perfect fairytale to come home with a stray kitten?” Hayden wrote.
Hayden finished her prayer, approached the barn one last time and was shocked by what she saw.
“[D]espite having not seen [them] for two days, four babies were sat at the tin of tuna, wolfing it down,” Hayden wrote.
You can watch that moment here:
Hayden was elated. Not only had she lured the original kitten out from under the barn, but three others followed suit — and she was determined to save them all. Thankfully, the kittens were distracted enough by the food to allow the newlyweds to get close.
“I think they were so hungry that they just didn’t even notice us touching them,” Hayden wrote in an Instagram comment.
The couple scooped the four kittens up and continued searching for their mom with no luck. When the venue owners confirmed they had never seen a mother cat on the property, Hayden took all four kittens home and gave them a new life.
It was a serendipitous moment for Hayden — not only had she just married the love of her life, but she was also grieving the recent and sudden loss of her bunny, Posie. But with four fluffy kittens nestled in her arms just days later, Hayden’s broken heart suddenly started to heal.
Two of the kittens, Woolbrook (named after the wedding venue) and Freja (inspired by the Nordic tradition of gifting a bride a kitten on her wedding day), went home with Hayden. The remaining two, Lilo and Stitch, were adopted by her parents — and all four babies have been thriving ever since.
It’s been over a year since Hayden married her best friend, and their fluffy wedding souvenirs are doing better than ever. Woolbrook and Freja have settled nicely into their forever home and have since befriended Beatrix, their three-legged canine sister. Lilo and Stitch are also thriving — enjoying regular visits from the beautiful bride who saved their lives.
There were many things Hayden anticipated for her wedding day, but gaining four fluffy family members was completely unexpected. Still, despite their chaotic rescue, the happy bride wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
“Our home is a riot of [little] paws everywhere, and my heart is so, so, so full,” Hayden wrote on
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