Mom is speaking out after accidentally inviting 487 guests to her daughter’s birthday party

A California mother is speaking out after accidentally inviting all of her 487 phone contacts to her daughter’s upcoming first birthday party.

Emily King, who shared the hilarious incident in a now-viral TikTok video, told “Good Morning America” ​​that she vividly remembers the dejected feeling she had when she realized she had made a huge mistake.

“I knew right away. I thought, ‘Wait, something’s wrong. … This isn’t happening.’ So all the blood is flowing out of my body,” King recalls the moment on April 10 when she noticed that the online invitation service she was using sent a digital invitation to her entire list after she imported her phone contacts to the platform.

King said that when she was preparing the invitation for her daughter Ivy’s birthday party in June, she noticed that Evite, the service she used on her smartphone, offered an option to import potential guests’ contact information.

“I see this tab and it says ‘import guests from previous parties.’ And I just had a St. Patrick’s Day party, so I was like, ‘Oh, perfect,'” King explained of her thought process.

After importing her contacts, King thought she would be able to select which of them would receive an invitation. But that wasn’t the case.

“I got to the actual invitation page and it said ‘Ivy’s first birthday’ – and at the bottom it said ‘Guests: 487’… and I was shocked,” King said.

“I started looking at the list and it’s everyone I’ve ever put in my phone,” King said. “Not only that, it’s everyone I put in my phone as they’re stored on my phone… and everyone I’ve ever emailed through work.”

King, a teacher, said she was at first confused and then nervous that acquaintances she had once met, including her colleagues and students, were on the guest list, in addition to the close family and friends she had planned to invite. The cool thing was also that everyone received a text message invitation based on what they were in their phone contact list.

“It’s like ‘cute guy from the bar’ and… like ‘old neighbor’ and it’s like ‘Derek eyeroll emoji’ and I once hit this girl’s car in a supermarket parking lot (and ) it said ‘Jess hit car’ in the parking lot,” King said. “Like all these people said they were on the invite list and that’s how they got the invite on their phone.”

King estimated that within five minutes of realizing what she had done, she quickly deleted the party event. However, the invitation text messages had already been sent and King and her friends were able to laugh about it afterwards.

“At first I was terrified, but I like to think I have a pretty good sense of humor,” King said. “So I was like, I was embarrassed, but then I also burst out laughing, like I couldn’t stop laughing that this had happened.”

King said she hopes others can learn from her mistake, which she said was simply “too funny not to share.”

“Always check first before selecting anything that looks like a ‘Select All’ button,” she says.

In a statement to “GMA,” Evite said the company contacted King when they noticed her viral TikTok post.

“We immediately contacted Em as soon as we saw her post! While we’ve taken several steps to ensure things like this don’t happen to guests, Em’s journey inspired something we call the ‘Emily Hotfix,’ which includes the ‘select all’ feature on iOS apps. We’re always learning from our users and hope this update will help other users too!” the company said.

As for Ivy’s first birthday party, King said it’s happening again and will be a “Lord of the Rings” themed bash. Moreover, she decided to expand her guest list from 50 to 70 guests.

“It will definitely be a first anniversary for the books. I’m really excited when (Ivy) is older to be able to tell her the story,” King said.