“He always gave roses to my mom on Valentine’s Day," said bride Kait Olidis.
A grieving bride honored her late father by reusing the flowers from his funeral at her wedding.
Kait Olidis, 28, of Toronto, Canada, lost her father Jim to cancer in 2015.
After the funeral, the family saved the rose petals from his service.
“He always gave roses to my mom on Valentine’s Day,” she told InsideEdition.com. “At his service, it was like an abundance of flowers. My mom and I were like, ‘What are we going to do with all these?’ So we decided to keep them and just dry them out.”
When Olidis and her longtime boyfriend Benett got engaged a few months after her father's death, she knew she wanted to use the dried rose petals as confetti for her wedding.
They also left an empty seat next to her mom on the big day to symbolize his presence.
Photographer Emily Curd of Emily Jean Photography captured the emotional display.
“He was the ultimate family man,” Olidis recalled. “He was always there, always encouraging us to do whatever we needed to do. Always supportive.”
Jim was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in the fall of 2014. Just five months later, he died of the disease.
“It was one roller coaster after another those five months,” Olidis recalled. “Trying to keep a positive outlook on things was pretty tough.”
She explained that toward the end, the disease affected his cognitive ability, but Benett was still able to get a moment in private with Jim before he passed to get his blessing before proposing to the man's daughter.
“He just always really wanted the best for us,” Olidis said.
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