A 21-year-old man kept his promise to his sister and brought a llama with him to her wedding.
The happy bride in her crisp white dress, Riva Weinstock, was stunned upon arriving at the wedding hall and seeing her brother with a llama in a tux.
The bride’s reaction was caught on camera and viewed all around the world—she was not impressed at all—her face says it all.
Riva’s photo with her brother Mendl and the llama hit the internet on Reddit. Mendl posted the photo and received more than 150,000 upvotes. His post also made it the top overall post this week.
Mendl is known to be a prankster, and Riva had already found out he would bring some sort of joke to her wedding, according to Metro News.
She accepted to pose just for one photo with the animal, but was surprised her unamused face got so much attention online and quickly became one of the top trending posts in the sibling section worldwide.
How the Llama Came to Be
The gag started five years ago when Riva and Mendl were driving from their home in Ohio to Indiana with some friends.
“She was talking about her wedding, planning it, making plans almost as if it was going to happen the next day even though she wasn’t dating anybody at the time,” Mendl told CNN.
The nonstop talk between the three teenage girls got on Mendl’s nerves.
So as little brothers do, he blurted out something that he knew would get a good reaction out of her.
“I said, ‘If you make me come to this wedding, I’m going to bring a llama with me,” Mendl recalled. “It was just the first thing that popped into my head.”
Naturally, Riva got upset and said that he was going to ruin her special day. But thinking that it was just a joke, she accepted the idea and said, “I give up. The llama is invited to the wedding.”
Fast forward five years and Riva got engaged in October. She called Mendl with the happy news. Not even an hour later, she received a text that said his llama rental was confirmed.
“When my brother puts his mind to something, he gets it done. So at some point I had to accept it and decide that it was easier to get in on the joke than to fight it,” Riva said.
Mendl rented a llama for $400 from a llama farm near Cleveland and even had a custom tuxedo made.
While $400 is a lot to shell out for a 21-year-old college student, Mendl said it was worth every penny.
“It was so worth it. I mean it was worth it just to see her reaction, but it’s been more worth it now that I’ve gotten all this internet fame,” Mendl said.
The llama, named Shocky, stayed outside of the wedding hall on Sunday for about 30 minutes, taking pictures with guests. “I was not too thrilled. I think my face in the picture pretty much wraps it up,” Riva said.
But unknown to Riva’s knowledge, it seems that everyone was in on the llama joke as it continued even inside the wedding hall—two inflatable llamas were placed at the sweetheart table by her friend.
Although the fluffy guest brought joy to everyone, Riva did not approach the animal. Shocky was brought back to his farm only after an hour of entertaining and hanging out with the guests.
Riva, however, expressed her gratitude toward her brother, saying that he undoubtedly made her day even more special by this memorable joke.
And Riva now is thinking of taking revenge on him—of course not for his wedding, since it is a bit too hard to predict—but his college graduation is not far away.
“I’ve definitely started planning my revenge,” Riva said. “He should sleep with one eye open.”
The CNN Wire contributed to this article.
