Woman claims her bridesmaid disappeared with $5,000 of her bridal party’s money just weeks before the hen do

A woman has claimed that one of her closest friends stole $5000 from the bridal party ahead of her wedding.

Emma Clair, 28, from Australia, married Aaron Mugica in February 2022, but started to plan her bridesmaids and big day from 2019.

Posting on TikTok, she explained that she made one of her best friends a bridesmaid and gave her the role to plan her three-day hen weekend.

However, all turned south two weeks before the event as the bridesmaid-to-be “stole money and did a runner” leaving the bridal party confused, broke and without accommodation.

Speaking to her 180,000 followers, Emma said: “So I had this friend once and we were super, super close, we literally did everything together, and we had a podcast together - we were literally inseparable.

“Now because we were such good friends I decided to make her a bridesmaid.

“The time had come when my bridesmaids started to organise my hen weekend which was going to be in March 2020 and each bridesmaid had a different role.”

The bridesmaid in question was tasked to book the accommodation and to be in charge of all the money.

“So it was a lot of money from a lot of people and I think it ended up being just over $5000,” Emma said.

“I got a message from her and she was starting all this drama and I was like, ‘this is really odd’. And then I started getting messages from all my other bridesmaids being like, ‘hey don’t want to alarm you, but this particular person is starting drama in the group and we’re not sure what to do about it.’

“This went on for a couple of hours, before my bridesmaids actually contacted me, and said they were starting to stress out, because she had stopped replying to them and also stopped replying to me.”

As they could not reach the friend, the bridal party contacted the accommodation which they believed they were staying at in two weeks’ time.

However, the lady informed the group that they could not change the details for their reservation as they were not booked in for that weekend at all.

Without accommodation and contact with the friend, Emma and her bridal party managed to get in contact with the runaway bridesmaid’s mother to try and locate their missing money.

Emma said: “We got in contact with her Mum, and without even flinching, she transferred us $5000 with no questions asked.

“While all this was happening, we heard nothing from her and realised she had blocked us on everything.”

With time running out, Emma’s bridal party scrambled to try and rearrange the celebration while battling Covid restrictions.

Emma concluded: “Once we got the money back, we managed to book an epic hen’s weekend, and I’m so grateful.”

Two years later Emma states that no one has seen or heard from the former friend.