Firefighter sells his beloved car to pay for his wedding, his wife surprises him

• In a TikTok posted on August 19, Laleh Vahedian said her then-boyfriend Cole Eberson urged her to quit a job that was making her miserable and said he would support them both financially.
• When the couple got engaged two years later and learned their small wedding would be expensive, Eberson sold his Jeep Wrangler to pay for it.
• Without her husband’s knowledge, Vahedian had raised money through TikTok so she could buy him his dream pickup

A TikTok video in which an Arizona woman revealed a secret she was keeping from her husband not only went viral, but also helped raise money for a special surprise gift for him.

In a TikTok on August 19, Phoenix-based wedding photographer Laleh Vahedian, 26, said she had been lying to her husband, Cole Eberson, 25, a firefighter, for the past four years.

“I was working as a barista at a well-known coffee shop chain,” Vahedian said in the clip, “and it honestly sucked the life out of me. I came home every day and cried.”

“Mine [then boyfriend] I just joined the fire department,” she added, “so he had a pretty stable job. He saw how much I struggled with it [when] I worked in the coffee house. I also tried to pursue photography.”

Finally, Vahedian says, Eberson told her she needed to quit her job as a barista to pursue her dream as a photographer full-time, and offered to support them both financially.

“He believed in me,” Vahedian said in the clip, adding, “I owe all my success to him.”

The couple got engaged two years ago. They couldn’t afford to pay for a small wedding as it turned out to be too expensive, and Vahedian was still struggling to make money full-time as a photographer. To make their wedding dreams come true, Eberson sold his beloved car that he had owned since he was 16 years old to cover the costs of their wedding.

Vahedian told her TikTok followers in the clip that she is saving money so she can buy her husband a new car as a way to pay him back for encouraging her to quit the job that was making her miserable.

“My goal is that on our five-year anniversary I can buy him a new car,” she said.

As it turns out, it didn’t take her five years to achieve that goal. As Vahendian tells PEOPLE, she was able to raise the money in just two months since posting that TikTok — which had more than 2.5 million views as of Thursday, Nov. 21.

‘He loves him [new] car,” she says. “I think he’s still in disbelief because it happened so quickly and he didn’t really have to do anything for it, and he feels like he has to pay me back somehow. And I’m like, ‘ Dude, no.” .’ That’s the whole point.’ ”

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Vahedian says she was in a serious car accident in 2020, just months after she and Eberson started dating. After recovering, Vahedian needed a new job, which led her to the barista gig at the coffeehouse. Eberson, who went on to become a firefighter, saw her unhappiness with her job where she worked for seven months and said she should pursue her photography dreams instead.

“I just started crying,” Vahedian recalled of her friend’s gesture. ‘I said [to him]’No. That’s too much for you.’ He basically said, ‘I have a steady job now. It may not be much, but it will be fine.’ ”

After their engagement two years later, Eberson sold his special car – a 2001 Jeep Wrangler – to pay for the wedding; the two married in October 2023.

“He says, ‘I’ve already made up my mind.’ I want to do this for us,’” Vahedian recalled, despite her protests.

From the moment he offered to support her decision to leave the job, Vahedian knew she was going to do something special for Eberson.

“I also knew he always wanted a truck,” she says. “He is someone who always does everything for everyone and never expects anything in return.”

Vahedian says she started creating and posting TikTok videos, monetizing them based on views. The returns started small.

“One day I decided to make a video about making money on TikTok and trying to save up for this lie I was telling,” she tells PEOPLE. “I just posted it on a random day of the week. Within a day it had about a million views.”

Eberson never knew what his wife was up to — he didn’t even have a social media account, which helped Vahedian keep the secret from her TikTok followers.

“It was about the end of September. I had earned enough while it was very easy for me to make the monthly payments [for a car],” she says.

One morning in mid-October this year, while scouring the Facebook marketplace to sell her old cameras to contribute to the fund, Vahedian came across an ad for a 2020 Toyota Tacoma posted by a car salesman in Peoria, Arizona .

To her, the pickup looked like her husband’s dream car. After contacting the dealer by phone, she finally told Eberson what she had done.

“He asked if I was playing a prank on him,” Vahedian said. “I was sobbing and told him, and he said, ‘Is this a joke?’ And I’m like, ‘No, it’s not a joke!’ We were there [at the dealership] at 2pm because it was over an hour away, and a few hours later we walked out of there with keys in hand.

Since purchasing his new pickup truck, Eberson has been driving around with his firefighter friends, according to Vahedian. ‘He won’t let me open my door. He has to open the door for me. He says, “You get the princess treatment.” And I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m for it,'” she says.

Vahedian says she has since made enough money from her photography business that the couple was able to put down a down payment on their house. She is also looking at her own dream car – a 2024 Volkswagen Atlas – but she is happy where she is now.

“Social media is crazy,” she says. “It can really make dreams come true. I’m just so grateful.”

The experience also sparked Eberson’s interest in social media, after previously ignoring it. “He is now willing to be in TikToks with me,” says Vahedian, “and that’s not something I ever thought would happen. He is willing to appear in front of the camera now. It’s so funny to see that he’s just a very private person.”

“He is so grateful for everyone who has supported us,” she continues. “I showed him all the videos and he always asks about them. ‘How’s the video going now? How many views do you have now?’ He probably won’t tell me he’s invested, but I know he’s invested now.”