A Wedding with Cancer on the Mind & Love in the Hearts • Xsperience Photography

When Megan was excitedly planning her wedding last winter, she found out some news that would change the tone of excitement to worry and concern. “My mom was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. In spring we had talked about moving our wedding forward but mom said “don’t you dare” in hopes that her cancer would be gone by then and she would be back to healthy. Unfortunately 2 weeks before the wedding they found 5 lesions on her brain and immediately had to start radiation. Three days before the wedding she got very very sick and weak, but didn’t want to go to the doctor because she was afraid of missing the wedding. About 10 minutes before the rehearsal, she became very confused about what day it was and if she was suppose to be getting ready for the wedding. She couldn’t walk, or even stand by herself. My dad decided to take her in to the ER because everybody was very scared. Very quickly we found out how sick she really was and that she wouldn’t be making it to the wedding. We immediately had to put our relationship to the test and make a big decision of whether to continue on or postpone. We decided mom would want us to keep going. We all put on the strongest face we had, but we were obviously very distracted and extremely worried about what condition mom was in, or even if she would make it to look at some pictures. We did our best to focus on each other and the people around us.”

Unfortunately her mom wasn’t able to see any of these photos before she left this world. “But we know she was there in spirit. If there is anything positive that came out of this, it is that we were truly able to put our relationship through the hardest test there will be. It also gave me the opportunity to lean on family members that would have otherwise been out of town or not around and gave them the chance to be around mom for her last days. We really needed one another to get through this difficult time.”

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