A considerate couple moved their wedding to a hospital room when the groom’s father underwent emergency surgery.
After a two-year engagement, Texas high school sweethearts Michael, 20, and Aaliyah Thompson, 18, had planned a September 21 wedding at their church in Mesquite. However, two days prior, Michael’s father William, a construction worker, contracted MRSA, a type of staph bacteria that causes painful skin blisters, and was sent to Baylor Scott & White Health hospital in Sunnyvale, Texas.
The Thompsons didn’t want to cancel their wedding having already rescheduled twice — once because Michael was serving in the military, then again due to multiple deaths in the family.
“Getting married at the hospital was a joke,” Michael tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “Then it became serious, so we dropped all our plans.”
Aaliyah told the hospital in a video interview, “I called [Michael] and said, ‘If your dad has surgery, there’s no way they’re going to let him out for the wedding. We have to think of something’...and that’s when we decided, if he’s not able to make it to the wedding, we go and get married in front of him in the hospital room.”
Micheal contacted his pastor, the officiant, who agreed to the new plan. Aaliyah then informed their 200 guests about the change and organized a last-minute reception at the church that afternoon, for which she wore her wedding gown.
The hospital staff at Baylor Scott & White Health had less than two hours to bake a diabetic-safe cake for William, who lives with the disease. The staff also provided juice and flowers.
Fifteen people, including both families and William’s doctor and nurses, herded into the small room to watch the Thompsons exchange vows wearing blue hospital gowns and surgical gloves to protect William from outside germs. “My dad had been stuck in bed, so he was very happy,” Michael tells Yahoo Lifestyle.
Michael added in the video interview, “He was really excited. We’ve been talking about marriage for quite a while, and he’s pretty much seen Aaliyah as a daughter....so he was just excited that it was finally official.”
The Thompsons have not yet planned a honeymoon, because after the wedding and William’s release, Aaliyah’s father was also hospitalized with a staph infection.
But hard luck hasn’t tripped up the newlyweds. As Michael said in the video interview, “It helped us strengthen our marriage.”
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