Eleven strangers answered her invitation and became friends

After her engagement ended when her fiancé suffered a medical emergency, Bridget Devaney posted an anonymous invitation on social media, asking women she had never met to join her for a week in Northern Ireland. Her elopement was off, but the booking was still there. Hundreds responded. Eleven signed up, traveling from the United States, Canada and Wales for someone whose face most of them had never seen. "When these women signed up for this trip, they didn't know my name," Devaney told BBC News NI. "They didn't know anything about me." In October, the group visited the Giant's Causeway and the Dark Hedges. On the date once reserved for her wedding, they dressed up for a photoshoot instead. Photographer Rob Dight, who extended her original booking, had shot elopements for more than a decade. During the shoot he learned many of the women had met in person three days earlier. "It was just so wholesome," he said. Weeks later, they are still texting, already planning the next trip.