The Amazing Thing One Woman Did After Her Fiancé Called Off Their Wedding

Calling off your wedding is one of the hardest, most gut-wrenching things a person can do—and it's even more painful when you're not the one who made the decision.

So it's not only admirable, but downright inspiring to see someone going through this very thing with strength, courage, and even grace. These three qualities are exactly what 35-year-old Amber Jones embodied after her fiancé decided to call off their wedding, just one week before the big day.

To help her cope with the situation, her loved ones flew with her down to New Orleans, where the wedding was supposed to take place, as planned. And, after a heart-to-heart with her photographer Leah Dorr, something amazing happened: Jones, her family, and her close friends documented the aftermath of the wedding that never was.

“It was the first time my entire family was together in one place, just for the sake of being together, for over a decade,” Jones told Yahoo! Health. “And they all came together to hold me up. Somehow, the solidarity, and seeing and feeling unconditional, forgiving love radiate from them, made the pain of [my fiancé’s] decision almost irrelevant.”

The resulting photos capture touching moments like Jones and her best friend jumping on the bed, Jones giving her mother a special "Mother of the Bride" present, Jones hugging her father and even meaningful wedding details like the 603 paper flowers Jones handmade herself.  Amber didn't want the images from the weekend to be, "'See! You didn't get me down! I'm gonna get out of this on top!'," Dorr says. "Instead, she wanted to show the raw emotion and tell a story."

Looking back, Jones says that the experience helped her face the reality of her situation without humiliation.  And while she feels she still has more healing and grieving to do, "all of that will be okay in time because, in the end, I got so much more than a wedding.”

Amen to that.

Of course, Jones isn't the one woman to mark such an occasion with photos: In 2014, Shelby Swink did an incredible "trash the dress" shoot with friends and family after her fiancé called off their wedding only five days before it was supposed to happen. Pretty incredible how both Jones and Swink took heartbreaking situations and turned them into something meaningful, even fun.