A bride-to-be shared 'attainable' wedding tips in a viral TikTok in the hopes of making the wedding industry less toxic

• A TikToker's series on wedding tips she's discovered online has gone viral.
• Some of Paige Bruggink's advice includes using an envelope moistener and paying vendors afterward.

A bride-to-be's video of the wedding tips she's learned on TikTok went viral, and she says she hopes it helps make the wedding industry become less toxic.

Paige Bruggink, 22, is set to tie the knot with her fiancé Christian on New Year's Eve after the pair got engaged back in November, she told Insider. The Wisconsin-based couple met as teenagers through a local camp, she added. "He went to our high school prom with one of my friends and came home as my date," Bruggink said.

Soon after the engagement, Bruggink said she began using TikTok to document her journey to the altar but also as a resource for following wedding planners with handy wedding tips. "I have always watched wedding TikTok," Bruggink, who goes by @paigebruggink2 on TikTok, said. "I literally have pages and pages of notes of what I need to incorporate."

On April 18, she decided to post the first video of a series on her favorite wedding tips so far, which had gone on to amass over 3 million views on Friday.

The advice includes not tipping a vendor before receiving a product from them, buying an envelope moistener to send out invites, and using a calendar as a wedding guest book so guests can write their messages on the day of their birthday. Bruggink also said she plans to incorporate the tips on her big day.

However, one of the most talked-about suggestions Bruggink included in the video was the "30/5 minute rule" that not many of her followers knew about, she said.

"Essentially it's just like anything that would take you five minutes in your everyday life is going to take 30 minutes on your wedding day, at least," she said, which helps account for an accurate wedding day timeline, including how long it would really take to get dressed.

The goal is to change a 'toxic' wedding industry, Bruggink says

Since uploading her first video, Bruggink has gone on to post 11 Tik Tok wedding advice videos. In her latest video, uploaded on Tuesday, the advice she shares includes changing undergarments between the wedding and reception.

"I think this is crucial, especially if you're having a summer wedding," she said. "Think about just how refreshing this would be and, like, how much more comfortable you'd feel."

Another tip in the same video was simply to "invite rich people" such as celebrities. According to Bruggink in the video, she's seen a lot of other TikToks of people trying it out.

"The reality is that none of them are probably going to come but they'll probably send you gifts," she said. "These people get so many wedding invites and they don't have time to filter out who they know."

Aside from wedding tips, she has a separate series showing wedding hauls from Goodwill. She told Insider that she's only spent $500 on her wedding decor by thrifting. The purpose of doing so is to demonstrate ways to save money and be less wasteful with a wedding, Bruggink added.

"The wedding industry I found to be so toxic as a whole," Bruggink said. In her opinion, a vast majority of wedding content has a sense of "elitism," which creates a lot of insecurity for brides-to-be when it comes to how luxurious their special day should be.

"When I was scrolling through TikTok, there would be so many times where I'd be like, 'This is a $50,000 wedding, which is great. If you have a $50,000 wedding, that is fantastic," she said. "It would just never be attainable for me."

In sharing wedding tips and her Goodwill hauls, Bruggink said she hopes to provide her followers with relatable advice for their own weddings. "I was just trying to be someone who was transparent and be someone that someone else could relate themselves to," she said.