An influencer ditched her flight at the airport to go on the 'craziest' blind date. Then Frontier gifted her $1,000 in vouchers as millions root for their relationship to last.

• Karissa Wampler ditched her flight last minute after her friend convinced her to go on a blind date.
• Millions are now gripped by the long-distance romance, which she's been chronicling on TikTok.

Less than an hour before her Frontier flight home to Florida last month, while she was waiting at the airport gate, Karissa Wampler's friend begged her to stay in North Carolina for one more night to go on a blind date with someone she insisted was Wampler's "soulmate."

"I'm not a very crazy person," the 23-year-old TikToker with 1.1 million followers told Insider. "I'll take risks, but I'm very calculated usually."

On September 14, as her flight was boarding, she decided to take the plunge — and shared the saga on TikTok to 2.1 million viewers. Wampler described the spontaneous event as "the craziest date of [her] life," which included a rooftop dinner, pickleball match, and deep conversations lasting long into the night.

Wampler told Insider she filmed snippets to document the serendipitous whirlwind and in case her date — whose name is Christian but whom she publicly calls granola boy, thanks to his love for nature — turned out to be unsafe.

Since their fateful meeting last month, a corner of TikTok has become deeply invested in the budding romance and is passionately rooting for the couple to last. This is all as Wampler has chronicled the long-distance courtship in real-time. The attention has been "so weird," Wampler told Insider, but ultimately more exciting than anxiety-inducing.

"I'm enamored by him," she said. "Otherwise, I would never be making all of these videos."

Two weeks after their first date, Christian — who does not have social media and is choosing to stay offline in order to get to know Wampler organically, she said — flew to Florida to see her again. There, she surprised him with a skydiving date and he asked her to be his girlfriend. The two soft-launched, then hard-launched the relationship — two ubiquitous terms for making the relationship official — in a get-ready-with-me video earlier this month.

Wampler called the brand interest in her love story 'a genius marketing move'

In addition to fervent fans, brands have wisely gotten in on the action. Given that Wampler works in the social media space (specifically consulting with local businesses in Sarasota on online marketing), she respects the hustle.

On October 2, Frontier sent her an all-you-can-fly pass and $1,000 in flight vouchers to fund their travel, which Wampler called "a genius marketing move." The CEO of Tarte, Maureen Kelly, also commented on one of her videos that she wanted to send Wampler makeup (which she hasn't received yet).

Wampler keeps branded content on her page to a minimum "unless it's just a really great deal," she said. But she's currently in talks with several companies who want to sponsor her relationship with Christian.

That said, posting personal content has been a "huge dynamic shift" for Wampler, who initially built her TikTok presence by sharing self-help advice and beauty hacks. She only started posting lifestyle videos earlier this year after her divorce from her ex, a pro racecar driver, was finalized.

Christian, too, was initially "a little overwhelmed" by all of the attention – including some gentle ribbing from his coworkers. But he previews all of the videos before they're published and enjoys seeing the relationship from Wampler's perspective.

The response has been almost unanimously positive. "This is one of the only viral videos I've ever posted that didn't have a very big negative reaction," Wampler said.

Up next? Wampler is flying to Raleigh at the end of the month, and Christian's coming to Sarasota in November for Thanksgiving. She'll have her vlog camera in tow.

"I could definitely see it becoming a long-term thing where we create content together," Wampler said.