Lexi Tobin was always “the planner” among her siblings and friends.
In 2019, Tobin helped her brother-in-law to-be plan his proposal. She ordered picture frames, strung lights across an archway, put candles in paper bags and set them up at her family’s beach house in New York state. On the day, she shakily filmed her sister running down a white runner across the deck into her fiancé’s arms.
A year later, she uploaded the footage to TikTok, on a whim. Within 30 minutes, more than 100,000 people watched the 41-second video, says Tobin, now 27 and living in New York City: “I think 9 million people watched it in the first 48 hours. I was completely blown away by the thrill of going viral.”
A side hustle — planning other people’s wedding proposals and posting bride-to-be’s reactions on TikTok — was born. Tobin brought in six figures of revenue, including roughly $9,000 …