Michelle Wylie’s wedding day in November 2021 at the Carlton Hotel in Prestwick, Ayrshire, was everything she’d hoped for—beautiful, joyful, and filled with family and friends. But as the newlyweds flipped through their wedding photos, a peculiar detail leapt out: a tall, unfamiliar man in a dark suit, lurking in the aisle and even at the back of group shots. Neither Michelle, her husband John, nor any of their guests could identify him. The mystery of the unknown wedding guest would become a four-year obsession for Michelle, one that would only be solved with the help of social media—and a dash of Scottish humor.
“As soon as I got the sample of the wedding pictures, I noticed it straight away,” Michelle, a 38-year-old digital facilitator for the NHS, told SWNS. “We all said, ‘Do you know who that is?’ We were asking around the family and friends, and no one had any idea.” According to The Guardian, even hotel staff were stumped. “We wondered if he was a mad stalker,” Michelle admitted to BBC Scotland, reflecting the bafflement that gripped her family and friends. The mysterious man had slipped away right after the ceremony, leaving behind only his image—and a growing sense of curiosity.
For years, Michelle tried to solve the puzzle. She posted the photos on Facebook, hoping someone would recognize the stranger. “It was always in the back of my mind, who was that and why was he there?” she told SWNS. Time and again, the posts went unanswered. The identity of the wedding crasher remained a tantalizing question mark, a story Michelle would recount whenever she looked back at her big day.
But Michelle wasn’t one to give up easily. In September 2025, she decided to try a new approach. She reached out to Dazza, a popular Scottish content creator with over 400,000 Facebook followers and 129,000 TikTok subscribers, asking him to share the photos. “I was looking through the wedding pictures, and I just thought, ‘I’m going to message someone with a lot of followers and ask if they can share,’” Michelle explained. Dazza agreed, and within two hours of posting the images, the mystery was solved.
The man in the photos was Andrew Helliman, a 33-year-old painter and decorator from South Ayrshire. He came forward with a sheepish confession: he had attended the wrong wedding by mistake. “I was at the wrong wedding!” Andrew told SWNS after seeing his face on Dazza’s page. “Four years ago my partner was acting as bridesman for his friend Michaela’s wedding and I’d been invited as his plus one.”
Andrew’s partner had left early that morning to help with bridal party preparations, leaving Andrew to make his own way. But a simple mix-up sent him to the wrong venue. “For some reason he told me it was at the Carlton hotel in Prestwick at 2:00 p.m., when it was actually being held at the Great Western hotel in Ayr,” Andrew said. Running late, he arrived at the Carlton Hotel just minutes before the ceremony, saw a bagpiper and wedding guests, and assumed he was in the right place. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Cool, this is obviously the right place,’” he recalled to The Metro. “I parked my car and rushed inside. I made my way into the hall and saw the groom standing and waiting nervously. I had never met Michaela’s husband before so I thought, ‘Alright, this must be Ben.’”
The fact that he didn’t recognize a single person didn’t faze him—after all, he only knew the bride and his partner, who was supposed to be in the bridal party. But as the music began and everyone stood to watch the bride walk down the aisle, it hit him: “OMG, that’s not Michaela!” Andrew said. “You can’t exactly stand up and walk out of a wedding mid-ceremony, so I just had to commit to this act and spent the next 20 minutes awkwardly sitting there trying to be as inconspicuous as my 6ft 2 ass could be.”
After the ceremony ended, Andrew hoped to slip away unnoticed. But fate—and the wedding photographer—had other plans. He was asked to join a group photo, and his discomfort is immortalized in the pictures that would send Michelle on her years-long search. As soon as he could, Andrew rushed outside, made some frantic phone calls, and finally made his way to the correct wedding in Ayr. “I was almost as popular as the actual bride and groom and spent most of the night retelling that story to people,” he joked to SWNS.
The accidental crash became a running anecdote for Andrew, but for Michelle, it remained a genuine mystery until the social media campaign brought them together. When they finally met face-to-face on September 11, 2025, the mood was nothing but lighthearted. “I could not stop laughing,” Michelle told BBC Scotland. “It is so funny, and the way [Andrew] tells the story is brilliant. We can’t believe we’ve found out who he is after almost four years.”
The pair now plan to keep in touch, and the story has become a cherished part of Michelle and John’s wedding memories. “Our wedding day really was the perfect day,” Michelle said. “But this [blunder] adds another great story to it that gives us even more special memories. It has certainly put a lot of smiles on people’s faces.”
The tale of the accidental wedding guest is a reminder that sometimes, the most memorable moments are the ones you never planned. For Michelle, John, and Andrew, a simple mistake turned into a story they’ll be telling—and laughing about—for years to come.
