Doctors gave her dad six weeks to live.
A California bride held two weddings to include her dying father on her special day.
Vieneese Stanton was originally planning to marry her fiancé, Douglas Stanton, in 2018 but when her father fell ill, she decided to change the date.
Stanton’s dad, Preston Rolan, was diagnosed with leukemia in February and her fiancé proposed later that month, not realizing the extent of her dad’s condition.
“It seemed like my dad was getting better and he was going into remission,” Stanton told InsideEdition.com. “Over the summer and the past few months, the doctors have said my dad is getting significantly worse.”
Stanton decided to move the wedding up to November. She hoped that her father would not be in the hospital on her big day. At the beginning of October, however, they gave him six weeks to live.
“My dad and I had always talked about walking me down the aisle,” Stanton said. “I literally just made a minor plan to go the hospital on our way to our city hall wedding so that I could walk with my dad and he could see me that day. I was totally planning on being there for like 10 minutes.”
But the nurses at UCSF medical center in San Francisco, Calif., had other plans.
“They kind of just took it and ran with it,” Stanton said. “They made it way bigger than I imagined. They hired musicians. They had food and drinks. They kept it a secret from my dad the entire time so the wedding was a complete surprise for him.”
Last Thursday, the nurses had Stanton's father wait for her to secretly arrive before he took his morning walk.
“He kept asking them that morning if he could take his walk and they kept telling him, ‘No, let’s just wait a while,’” Stanton said.
“When I finally arrived to the hospital, they had to hide me around a corner and he started his morning walk. As he was walking towards me I kind of turned the corner and jumped into his face. He was so surprised and literally almost started crying.”
Stanton said her soon-to-be-husband was standing at the other end of the hall so her dad then walked her toward him and gave her away.
The family also did a prayer, sang a song and had a toast after her dad gave a speech.
“It was something I never thought would happen because the more I talked to his doctors, the worse the reports got,” Stanton said. “I was just embracing it. It was lovely."
The couple then went to city hall after where they legally got married, but having her dad there on her big day is a moment she says she will cherish forever.
