Surviving Brain Cancer in a Precarious World

Part 24: The Wedding...

With just a few weeks left before the wedding my fiancée and I were trying our best to sort out the last of the arrangements and make sure that we hadn’t left any major things out, we paid our final payment to the venue at Crabwell Manor and all that was left to do was have our pre-wedding celebrations.

I had my stag do in Chester at a place that did plenty of Brazilian food that was ketogenic friendly and didn’t cook with low-quality omega 6 oils. My best man Dave came to pick me up and take me there where I met up with a combination of family and friends from work.

Sadly many that I invited could not make it so I decided I would do another one a few weeks later after my Fiancée’s Hen do, to make sure I could celebrate with everyone I wanted to. The first one in Chester was quite a fitting venue considering it was right next door to where I had first met my fiancée to start our first date in 2015.

It was a brilliant night because not only was there plenty of ketogenic food but my best man got to meet my usher Klaire who had become one of my most trusted friends ever since I started working after university.

Just like my best man, Klaire had provided me with incredibly valuable support and courage during the previous year so celebrating with them along with people who had helped me get educated on cannabis early on in my journey, made me even more excited for the big day.

The second stag event took place in North Wales at Rhos on Sea which was another place I had taken my fiancée to on our first date. Sadly all but 1 that missed last time missed this too but I was made up to have my Father and Father in law there to celebrate with.

Everything seemed to be going great in terms of our wedding plans apart from our suits. We went to Moss Bros in Chester and it seemed they got everyone’s order wrong apart from mine so, in the end, my usher Klaire had to collect a suit that was a slightly different shade to everyone else’s.

Something I was very proud to have was the wedding cake made for us by the sister of my best man’s fiancée because she had done such an amazing job that fit perfectly with our Cornish beach theme. We made it so that every table in the venue was named after a particular Cornish beach.

This was important for us because Cornwall had been the first place we had gone on holiday together. One of our fondest memories of the trip was when we went to visit St Michaels Mount so we decided to name our head table after it.

A week before the wedding, we travelled down to Rugby to meet up with all my side of the family as the Canadian side had arrived and had been enjoying their first week showing their children London and Windsor Castle. This event was ruined for us though as my sister had been invited.

We felt it was difficult for the rest of the family to understand why we didn’t want to be around her especially this close to our wedding so it wasn’t a shock for me to find out that most of them had no idea of the trouble my sister had caused us by insulting my fiancée and saying to me “Oh well you only have 2 years left”.

My father wanted to try one last time to try to get my sister to apologise to us so that she could be invited to the wedding too. It went down just as bad as I thought it would when my sister kicked off and claimed it was her that needed to be apologised to and then started mouthing off at my fiancée and upsetting her.

It was only until my auntie stepped in and was about to tell my sister to leave that my sister changed her tone and tried to apologise to us. While she was doing it you could see that side smile that it was in no way genuine but more she was enjoying the chaos and drama she had created.

In the end, we left this event feeling there had been a big miss-communication just how low my sister had gone a few months before and it put us in an extremely uncomfortable situation after travelling all the way down to the Midlands.

It made us sure that we made the right decision not to invite my sister to our wedding through because she had not changed, had no interest in attending and probably just wanted an invite to have the satisfaction of turning it down.
I went home feeling drained because the discomfort had caused me so much stress, especially seeing my fiancée get verbally attacked to the point of her coming to tears.

It was also sad that my Nan and Grandad both in their 90’s were struggling with this awful flu that had been making its way around everyone there the week before. This made it look unlikely they would be ok in time for the wedding back up in Chester the following weekend.

Before the main wedding day, we had to go to Chester to get our official wedding registration done as the Diocese for our church had decided the church would not forgive my previous marriage despite not listening to the circumstances of that error or that the COE website seemed to state that it was no longer an issue for the Church but also explains that it comes down to the digression of the individual Diocese.

This hurt in a way because I was taught that Jesus forgives all sins but it seemed this decision was more of a personal one by the Diocese who never once met us or properly gave us a chance to explain why it was important that we had our wedding in a church.

I was struggling with my nerves quite a bit on this day because I just wanted to get to the proper event and this first day seemed very procedural and more of a technicality that was in the way of what we both wanted which was to just be in church and have all our friends and family there as we imagined our perfect wedding.

Before we went into the registry office, my fiancées best friend stepped out from behind a pillar to surprise her as she wasn’t sure if she could attend originally. This set of my fiancée's emotions and in turn mine especially when my Dad showed up without my Mother because she was just unlucky to be ill with that horrendous flu that was still doing the rounds.

On the night time, my usher, my best man and his fiancée stayed at our house while my fiancée stayed at her parents house so I wouldn’t see her until she had made it down the church aisle for the blessing on what we considered to be our official wedding day despite the dioceses decision to only offer a blessing.

I remember going to sleep feeling a lot less nervous about the big day because I was just so excited that it was finally here with nothing in the way of how we pictured our perfect wedding day.

When I woke up and showered, the house was a chaotic mix of us all passing each other by having breakfast and getting dressed in our outfits. When I was fully suited and booted I felt my nerves kick in which went away as fast as they came after a short vape with the cannabis I was still using as a maintenance dose which was also helping me remain seizure free now.

Once at the church, we met up with our vicar and his wife who would be taking it in turns to go through the blessing and the service order. The day before the weather wasn’t sunny but today the sun was shining through the stained glass making the church look more beautiful than I had ever seen it.

Klaire was doing a fantastic job as the usher making sure everyone knew what side to go. It was great to see my boss Jon with his wife Carole. Jon was also one of the only people from work who had come to visit me early on in my recovery from brain surgery the previous year.

After the wedding photographer took some prep photo’s I turned around to see 3 wonderful people, my mother who had thankfully just managed to recover, my Auntie from Canada and my mother's brother, Uncle Ste who had come from living in Greece. It was then that I knew the rest of the day was going to go well. It didn’t seem long after that, that the church was filled with family and friends from both families.

My fiancée's uncle Jon also made it who was by now dealing with very advanced motor neurons disease so I felt very humbled that he had braved it. It made me think back to the look he gave me the night before I first went to get my results the year before. Back then he wasn’t in a wheelchair but used a cane to walk.

That look said a thousand words in terms of making the most of good times. Seeing him there with his family helped make this an easy thing to achieve early on.

The year before he made it to his daughter’s wedding which was very emotional because back then he still managed to do a speech for them. We were just extremely happy to still have him in our lives and there to witness our marriage in the D’Arcy’s favourite church.

When I had been standing in my place for the traditionally extended wait for the bride to arrive I remember looking forward at the altar and the stained glass thinking how lucky I was to be there experiencing all this. I was trying my best to take it all in and be in the moment so that I could enjoy every second and always remember it in great detail.

When the organ music started played by my soon to be brother in law Andrew Love, my heart started beating this time with pure joy and excitement to see my bride. He played it perfectly as always and really helped me stay in the moment.

When she made it to our blessing places, I was blown away by how beautiful she looked, just like the first time I saw her outside the Roman Gardens when we first met.

When saying our vows and exchanging our rings this time it all felt like the real thing, the way it was meant to be. Now properly married my wife went from Nicola Love to Nicola James.

To be Continued!...