California couple Michelle Mahoney and Jeff Becerra’s divorce party went viral after their daughter tweeted photos of the separation commemoration.
After 25 years, the couple terminated the marriage. They kicked off the event with a party on the day the divorce became official. Family and friends attended the bash that furnished typical wedding details: cake, balloons, commemorative bottles of booze, and a toast, according to local ABC7 News.
Becerra and Mahoney have two daughters together.
Newly divorced, Mahoney told ABC7 that after “self-examination,” the two realized they had “fallen out of love.”
“It’s like having a death. You grieve,” Mahoney said of the divorce. “It was heartbreaking. It was really hard work. It was devastating.” The two stated they were not celebrating the divorce, but rather the manner in which they did it.
Eighteen-year-old daughter Emma’s tweet of the divorce party, complete with photos, had been retweeted more than 54,000 times as of Thursday:
Emma Becerra’s previous tweets and retweets included several political tweets around the November 8 election. One election night tweet read simply, “[P]lease deport me.”
During an appearance on Good Morning America (GMA), the former couple and their daughter Emma laughed at the question of whether the parents would reconcile. “I didn’t feel sad at all. I just thought it was fun,” Emma said in response to a question of whether the event was bittersweet. She commented that the divorce party was something her parents would “totally do.”
Mahoney told GMA that they endure with the help of work, humility, sacrifice, discussion, and careful thought, while Becerra simply added, “and professional help.”
Two months of planning went into the event, according to Inside Edition. The couple even exchanged gifts. Becerra gave his ex-wife a toaster.
The exes drove away from the party in a car that donned the words “Just Divorced.” ABC7 reported that the two will take a trip to Spain together.
Mahoney and Becerra are not the first to throw a divorce party. Pinterest is host to a range of divorce party ideas; Etsy carries Divorce Party paraphernalia; and party planner and websites even appear to be cashing in on such events that could tap into dollars like those in the massive wedding industry.
In 2014, there were approximately 2.1 million marriages in the United States, excluding data for Georgia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is compared to more than 800,000 divorces, and that number does not include data from California, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, and Minnesota. In 2013, the Orange County Register reported, “The national divorce rate is about 50 percent. In California, it’s 60 percent.”
Even Hollywood is in on the “divorce party” action. CSI: Miami ran an episode around the divorce party idea in March 2009. An IMDb description of the episosde includes the ex-husband being “hanged from a gazebo during his ex-wife’s divorce party.”
Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana.
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