Jill Hadad Hawkins woke up with stomach pain on her wedding day. She assumed it was from nerves and would go away on their own. However, the discomfort had nothing to do with common marriage jitters. It was a result of her chronic health condition, ulcerative colitis, which hadn’t bothered her for years. An unexpected complication had arisen and it almost killed her.
From ceremony to surgery
However, when it was time for the ceremony, the pain had only gotten worse. “I was having a hard time standing up at that point,” Hawkins said. “In my mind, I just wanted to get down that aisle.”
Hawkins powered through her vows to her new husband, John, as well as posing for a few photos on the beach. At that point, the agony was too much to bear any longer. An ambulance arrived and rushed her from her wedding reception to a nearby hospital. She went from a lace wedding dress to a hospital gown as she was rushed into emergency surgery.
“There was no way this was all happening again…”
As a teenager, Hawkins had been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease. It causes inflammation and ulcers in the digestive tract, and can lead to life-threatening complications. As of now, there’s no cure but there are treatments available to improve symptoms and cause long-term remission. After multiple major surgeries, Hawkins thought she wouldn’t have to worry about the condition again. “I was, you know, moving forward thinking it was kind of behind me,” she said. For a long time, that was true.
“I just kind of thought, something feels a little weird, but it’s probably just nerves,” Hawkins said. Her thoughts that morning were far from her previous diagnosis. “There was no way in my mind that this was all happening again.”
A twist in her intestines
“It actually was very complicated,” said Dr. James Yoo, chief of colorectal surgery at Tufts Medical Center where they treated the bride. “She had a twist in her intestines which cut off the blood supply to that section of the intestine. She could have died from that.”
He was amazed she had managed to power through the marriage ceremony. “For this to happen to anybody is a devastating event,” he said. “To have it happen on your wedding day, it’s almost unbelievable.”
“I could have died on my wedding night…”
Dr. Yoo clarifies that wedding nerves could not have triggered this flare up. “Nothing could have precipitated this,” he said. “I think it was just bad luck.”
“It’s really hard to come to terms with the fact that I could have died on my wedding night,” Hawkins said. “But that’s the reality.” Fortunately, she has recovered and was given a good prognosis from Dr. Yoo: “She will live happily ever after.”
Sick at her own wedding
Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for wedding days to be memorable for all the wrong reasons. Wedding Planner Caroline Siân Bishop recalls one wedding where the bride fell sick. The bride had to sit down and Bishop held off the caterers so the couple could do their entrance at the dining hall. Suddenly, the bride rushed to the bathroom and began vomiting. After that, she was well enough to return to the reception but her nausea continued. She sat through the speeches then rushed back to the bathroom. The next day she learned she was pregnant.
A nail-biting race
Photographer Kristian Leven was capturing a groom decorating the wedding car. However, when the soon-to-be husband tried to rip a ribbon with his teeth, the cap from his front tooth popped off. Fortunately, the groomsmen recovered the tooth and found a dentist who could put it back on, although it was a Saturday. Leven drove the groom over and the dentist fixed it in a few minutes for no charge. During his speech, the groom explained the saga during his speech and Leven caught the bride’s reaction.
Hold the champagne
There are many stories of brides ruining their own wedding day by acting entitled and rude, but in this case, a bride ruined her wedding because she wasn’t drinking champagne. A group of older women noticed this and deduced that she must be pregnant and began telling everyone about it. They even said they saw a little bump under her dress.
But the truth was the bride was a recovering alcoholic who always abstains from champagne. Also, the bride and groom had been trying to conceive for a few years and had started to accept that they won’t have children.
Best man speech fail
The best man speech is typically a heartwarming event, and for one wedding, it started out even more so than usual. The best man explained to the guests that this speech was important to him because the groom had chosen him as best man despite his severe stutter. This wholesome moment quickly devolved into one of the worst speeches ever because the topics consisted of stories about exes and hookups, as well as jokes about how hot the bride was and how small the groom’s genitals were. The stutter prolonged every mortifying joke and the guests were appalled. The best man was proud of himself though.
The late father of the bride
A wedding registrar posted on Reddit about one garden wedding they’ll never forget. The bride’s father had died the year before, so as guests entered the venue, they came across a skeleton wearing the bride’s father’s clothes and requested to shake his hand.