After saving for years for a big wedding, couple cancels elaborate ceremony, pushes up date

After nine years and two daughters together, Kristina Eli and Ricky Aldrich had finally saved up enough money to throw a big church wedding. They had planned to marry at the end of this month.

But when it became clear that Kristina's terminally ill mother, Linda Eli, was not to survive to attend, the couple quickly changed their wedding date. On May 29, they wed in a conference room at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center - a month before the original wedding date.

Hospital chaplain Jeff Hale performed the ceremony, and members of both Eli's and Aldrich's families attended the ceremony. Linda was the guest of honor. She was brought to the wedding in a wheelchair, with the help of nurses Cheri Rodriguez and Kayli Petersen.

Linda, 46, was diagnosed with lung and brain cancer in January, after a winter spent enduring confusion, headaches and disorientation. Doctors had diagnosed her condition as allergies, but when her problems continued, Linda finally demanded an MRI. The scan, taken at Lebanon Community Hospital, revealed tumors in Linda's brain and lungs. She was transported to Sacred Heart Hospital in Eugene for brain surgery. The same day, she was fired from her job, something Kristina believes was a result of her mother's ongoing confusion.

After brain surgery, Linda had radiation and chemotherapy. She was transferred to the Samaritan Regional Cancer Center. Eventually, doctors learned that the cancer had entered Linda's blood stream and was in her bones, as well. It became clear that Linda would not have long to live.

That's when Kristina and her fiancé decided to cancel their June wedding ceremony (although they still plan to hold a reception for friends and family), and contacted Hale to see if he could preside at a hospital-based ceremony.

"The night before (the wedding), we told her," Kristina said. "She was a little disappointed because she still thought she could make it to the wedding. But she was very happy that she was able to see (the ceremony)."

Chaplain Jeff Hale is an ordained minister, and has officiated at a few staff members' weddings in the past, but this short-notice ceremony was a little out of the ordinary. He said hospital staff scrambled to make the ceremony and reception happen, and he was proud of the result.

"Everyone was very open to accomplishing it" with a week's notice, he said.

Hale was impressed that although the couple had their heart set on a big church wedding, and had been saving for several years to hold such an event, they were willing to put those plans aside for Linda's sake.

"(Kristina) realized it was far more important for her to have a wedding with her mother present," Hale said. "It shows a very unselfish attitude on the part of the child."

After the ceremony, the wedding party - dressed in their gowns and tuxes - escorted Linda back to her room and then came back downstairs for a reception. Kristina danced her first dance with her father, Robert, while a Tim McGraw song played.

"It had a very strong impact on everyone who was involved," Hale said.

A few days after the wedding, Linda became unconsciousness. Monday, she passed away with her family, including her two sons and two daughters, at her side.

In accordance with her mother's wishes, Kristina and Ricky and their children will move in with her father to give him support and help out with bills that have accumulated because of her mother's illness. Kristina is grateful that she was able to share her wedding with her mother, and treasures the photographs of her mother taken during the ceremony.

"She was the backbone to our family."