A bride has defended her decision not to wear makeup on her wedding day after facing shocking levels of criticism on social media.
Over the weekend, Tennessee woman Calynn Chapman posted a video from her wedding day showing her as she was about to walk down the aisle.
“Fun fact: I wore no makeup on our wedding day,” her on-screen caption read.
“This was something I went back & forth on during the entire engagement,” she added in the post caption.
“I never wear makeup, but it was my wedding! But at the end of the day, I decided against it & I felt the most beautiful I ever have just being naturally me.”
Surprisingly, the video went viral, amassing over 29 million views and 37,000 comments.
In the comments, many people questioned her decision to go makeup-free for the special occasion. Others were more mean-spirited while many took to the comments to defend her.
@calynndavis This was something I went back & forth on during the entire engagement. I never wear makeup, but it was my wedding! But at the end of the day, I decided against it & I felt the most beautiful I ever have just being naturally me.
♬ original sound - calynn chapman
“A confident woman’s biggest enemy is an insecure woman,” reads one comment with more than 200,000 likes.
“I’m sure her husband wore no makeup too like why y’all mad,” wrote another.
A third added: “Yall are so hypocritical. Yall could show your bridal makeup, but she can’t share she wore her bare face? Maybe to make girls who aren’t comfy in makeup feel like it’s okay to go bare faced? Miserable.”
Chapman responded to the backlash in a follow-up post on TikTok on Tuesday, where she explained that she was raised in a church that didn’t allow patrons to wear makeup.
“I didn’t learn or get into it because I simply wasn’t allowed to wear it,” she said. The bride continued, explaining how expensive it can be to hire a makeup artist for a wedding, and she didn’t want to spend “hundreds and even thousands of dollars” on something she might not like.
She also pointed out that her now-husband was “used” to seeing her without makeup and she wanted her wedding to be more about the two of them instead of what was on her face.
Chapman later spoke to People about the reaction, saying: “I was quite overwhelmed reading the comments.”
“I still remember the first negative one. I had never had so many views or received negative comments before. I thought about deleting it, but more began to pour in from people who thought I was bragging or said I needed makeup. But for every negative comment, there were hundreds of people backing me up — people I didn’t even know, which I thought was really cool. They were willing to stand up for a stranger.”
Chapman continued to say that many people had reached out to tell her she’d inspired them to skip makeup for their own weddings or events.
“This experience has made me want to encourage even more girls to be comfortable in their own skin, even on the biggest days of their life,” she said.
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