The bride's uncle, Edward Thornton, stepped up to fulfill the wedding role.
An uncle's scene-stealing entrance at his niece's wedding helped turn tragedy into an unforgettable moment.
Ashleigh Taylor, 25, married Oliver Taylor, 30, at The Lincoln Hotel in Lincoln, United Kingdom, on Saturday, Jan. 17, in an intimate wedding attended by 50 guests. When the couple got engaged, Ashleigh was pregnant, so the pair excitedly planned for their baby to be escorted down the aisle by the bride's mother as their flower girl or boy. Sadly, they later suffered a miscarriage and "weren't sure how to fill that moment in the ceremony."
That's when Ashleigh's uncle, Edward Thornton, 35, stepped up to take on the emotional role.
"My dad said, 'What about Edward?' -- his brother," Ashleigh recalls to PEOPLE. "We'd seen the idea of flower men online and instantly thought Edward would be perfect for it. We kept it a secret from most of the family, so no one saw it coming on the day."
Thornton was honored to be the flower guy, and he decided to go above and beyond everyone's expectations. The couple chose "Come and Get Your Love" by Redbone to play for Thornton's walk down the aisle as a nod to the fun opening scene in Guardians of the Galaxy. Thornton's performance was even more iconic.
Instead of gently tossing flower petals onto the ground, Thornton danced around and threw petals every which way to the delight of wedding guests -- including between his legs, up into the air, and out of his hand as if he were blowing a kiss.
"The guests absolutely loved it," Ashleigh says. "There was a slightly confusing moment at the start because the venue accidentally played the wrong song first, but once everything clicked into place, it went down brilliantly."
A clip from the wedding processional was recently posted by wedding content creator Phoebe Lock of Lock Those Moments. The video went viral on both Instagram and TikTok, garnering 1.4 million views and about 130,000 likes on the latter platform.
"When your uncle has ONE job at your wedding... and he absolutely smashes it," Lock wrote in onscreen text, and added in the caption, "Think it's safe to say he nailed the assignment 😂."
Ashleigh tells PEOPLE, "We've had so many compliments from guests about how much they enjoyed it -- and even online, the response has been amazing. We never expected it to go viral!"
Although Thornton was admittedly "nervous beforehand" because he only really knew his niece's side of the family and wasn't sure how everyone else would react, Ashleigh says that everyone agrees he "did an incredible job and completely put the bridal party at ease" before they entered.
"He is the icon, the legend and the moment," one TikTok user commented.