Groom Is ‘Shocked’ by Bride’s Bachelorette Party Confession After Wedding (Exclusive)

A bride’s bachelorette party trip confession has gone viral.

After Kayla and Scott Merkel-Greene exchanged vows on Nov. 15 at The Barn at Hart’s Grove in Windsor, Ohio, the bride, 28, pulled her husband, 30, aside to confess something she had been hiding from him for months right under her nose — literally!

“Scott was completely shocked,” Kayla tells PEOPLE.

Usually, any last-minute confessions are made before wedding ceremonies, not after, so when Kayla began explaining to Scott that she did something unexpected on her bachelorette trip in Geneva-on-the-Lake, he “was a little nervous based on the look on his face.”

“Kayla, would you like to share with him?” the wedding photographer, Aisley Herndon, asked with a laugh in a now-viral Instagram video of the big reveal as she was taking portraits of the couple.

“I did this when I was on my bachelorette trip…” Kayla began. “Okay, are you ready?”

Scott’s dread transformed into a mix of surprise and excitement when Kayla pulled down her lower lip to reveal a tattoo inside of his childhood nickname, “Biscuits.” He immediately exclaimed, “Oh, my God! You are s——- me!” as onlookers cheered.

“When I showed him, his jaw dropped,” Kayla remembers. “I saw so many emotions at one time on his face, it was really so cool to see him surprised like that. He still tells me to this day he had absolutely no idea and he can’t believe he went so long without noticing it.”

Kayla felt “excited and giddy” about the grand surprise. She “wasn’t nervous” because she knew “he would think it was so cool,” and they’d “laugh about it together.”

A few weeks before her bachelorette party, Kayla told her matron of honor, Katie, about her inner lip tattoo idea, and she found the perfect spot: The Lonesome Rose Tattoo Parlor. Originally, Kayla was planning on getting Scott’s last name, “Greene,” tattooed but leading up to trip she “just kept thinking about how [she] wanted it to be something he would find really funny.”

“We love to make each other laugh,” says Kayla, who’s been in a relationship with Scott for 12 years. “He knows I kind of roll my eyes at his nickname sometimes so I figured it would be a better idea to do his nickname.”

She continues, “When we walked into the tattoo shop it was like a scene out of a movie — people were packed in there like sardines getting tattoos. I’ve never seen so many people in a tattoo shop at one time. When I told them what I wanted, they were super excited because there was an apprentice that had just started and was needing opportunity to practice and I thought, what a better time to get practice because it’s just on my inner lip. It’s not going to look perfect anyway, and it will give it more character if it turns out a little wonky. But he actually did a really great job!”

Scott’s nickname originated with “him and his friends just being typical goofy middle school boys.” His friends called him “Scotty Biscuits,” and it became “one of those silly nicknames that just didn’t fade.” Since then, the nickname has not only stuck around, but “became part of who he is.” It’s even Scott’s Xbox gamer tag, and he has a baseball glove personalized with it.

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Kayla and Scott met through mutual friends in high school when they were 15 and 17 years old, respectively. After nine months of Scott being “persistent,” Kayla decided to give him a chance, and they’ve been inseparable since then.

“He became my best friend and I just knew he was going to be a part of my life forever,” Kayla says.

The couple got engaged in a once-in-a-lifetime moment during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, in Lorain, Ohio.