Bride Lauren Bruce has shared the embarrassing moment she mistakenly used a priest's holy cloth as a tissue during her church wedding ceremony. The video of her faux pas has been viewed by more than 18 million people, making her an internet celebrity.
What Happened?
During the ceremony, the priest reached over the couple, and Lauren, weeping with joy, assumed he was offering a tissue to wipe her eyes. She began dabbing her eyes and even blew her nose, before realising the cloth was actually a stole, a sacred garment used by priests.
In the clip, Lauren can be heard saying, "Thank you father," before realising her mistake. In a caption, she explained: "Please enjoy this video of me thinking our priest was handing me a tissue, but was in fact putting his holy cloth on our hands to bless us!"
She added: "Father was too stunned to speak." The video ends with Lauren laughing as she looks around at the congregation.
Reactions Online
Viewers found the moment hilarious. One TikTok user commented, "Please please please tell me the priest laughed though." Another said, "My body is actually getting hot because I’m so embarrassed and it’s not even me."
A third added, "The fact that you realised makes it 10x better. I am not religious at all and I would have thought the same thing." A fourth shared a similar church embarrassment, saying, "It’s so funny I really laughed, I did a thing at church when the vicar said to go round everyone and say peace be with you, but I thought he said pleased to meet you, and I’ve never quite recovered."
What Is the Holy Cloth?
The cloth is known as a 'stole', worn by priests. At Catholic weddings, it is wrapped around the couple's hands to symbolise their indissoluble union and God's blessing on their marriage vows. The website Where Peter Is explains: "We call the union of husband and wife indissoluble because, united in the Lord, their marriage bond cannot be broken. It’s a truth based on the Incarnation itself: when God became man, he united his divinity to our humanity."
