A Wedding Story To Give Us Hope

Just saw this on Yahoo News this morning. This one needs no explanation. With all the grief, sadness and violence in the world today-this one is a story of love, hope and gratitude.

Strangers Donate Dream Wedding to Bride With Cancer

By Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff 

Gargano, left, and Batugo at Sunday's dream wedding. Photo: COCO Gallery.Of the thousands ofweddings that no doubt took place in the U.S. on Sunday, there was at least one—between Jennifer Batugo and Brian Gargano, held in a picturesque Japanese garden on a Los Angeles hilltop—that had become a matter of life or death. 

More on Shine: Grab the Tissues: A Husband Documents His Wife's Battle with Breast Cancer

At least it felt that way for the bride, who was diagnosed with an extremely rare and aggressive form of breast cancer in late March. Told by doctors that she may only have a few months to live, Batugo, 29, and her fiancé decided they would move their August wedding to April. “We were given kind of a deadline, you could say,” Gargano told Yahoo! Shine. But they had no concrete plans set, and found themselves daunted not only by Batugo’s prognosis, but by the idea of pulling off a wedding so quickly.

More on Yahoo!: Pregnancy is Safe After Breast Cancer

For help, Gargano placed a call to L.A. wedding officiant Elysia Skye. Though he didn’t know it at the time, Skye also happened to be a breast cancer survivor who runs a non-profit breast-cancer support organization. She said she cried when she heard the young couple’s story, promising Gargano, “I’ll take care of it all.” Then she sprang into action, kicking off an Indiegogo fund-raising campaign for the wedding and for medical expenses (which, active through April 26, has raked in nearly $13,000 so far). She also easily convinced Yamashiro Hollywood to donate its venue to the couple’s 30-guest event and got some of the top wedding vendors in L.A. to donate their services, mainly by enlisting one very dedicated wedding planner, Laura Guerrie of Rebel Belle Weddings, to orchestrate the event in 10 days flat.

Sunday's wedding was picture-perfect. Photo: COCO Gallery.“All of the usual push-pull between what the bride wants and keeping everybody happy is gone,” Guerrie told Shine, adding that there were no formal contracts with any vendors, just an overwhelming flood of enthusiastic verbal commitments to create a magical day for the young couple. And it paid off.

“It gave me a lot of hope,” Batugo told Shine two days before the wedding. “I’m fighting now.”

Just after the wedding, for which the bride wore a champagne-hued gown given to her by an engaged friend—as well as a flowing, dark wig (donated) to cover her own hair, which has already begun to thin from treatments—Batugo sounded positively gleeful. “It was such a beautiful day,” she said happily, “and we’re grateful for the graces we received.”

Guerrie added, “Jenn has one of the most positive, bubbly, lively personalities of anyone I’ve ever met, and she was absolutely ebullient today—laughing and dancing and enjoying every minute of the party.”

It was a marked improvement from how Batugo was understandably feeling just after her rare diagnosis of angiosarcoma of the breast on March 22. Until that point, she had been looking forward to marrying Gargano, 34, a respiratory therapist based in Phoenix, with whom she had embarked upon a whirlwind long-distance relationship, becoming engaged to on Valentine’s Day. But on that fateful day, she learned that she may not live through the summer, and that she would need to start aggressive, weekly chemotherapy treatments right next door to the hospital where she was employed as a gynecology oncology nurse.

“I feel overwhelmed, loved, blessed, but the fear and sadness is new. Anxiety keeps me up...” she wrote on her cancer support blog MyLifeLine.org. “I feel hopeless, but I’ve put on the brave, optimistic, smiley exterior people know me to have... but how to keep it up?!!”

The answer came unexpectedly, through the outpouring of love from people who had never even met her before, beginning when Gargano placed his call to Skye’s company L.A. Wedding Woman, which he found on Yelp.

“We met to talk about the wedding, and Jenn was asking me all these questions about treatment and wigs and intimate situations,” said Skye, who was diagnosed with stage-3 breast cancer just after her 24th birthday. After undergoing a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and many reconstructive surgeries, the wedding officiant started a side project, the Elysia Skye Breast Cancer Organization, focused on education and prevention.

“What’s inspiring to me is how much Jenn is inspired. Three weeks ago she was like, I guess I’m going to be dead this summer,” Skye told Shine. “Since this [wedding planning] started, she’s said I’m going to beat this. It just gives me purpose.”

In addition to the thousands of dollars raised through the Indiegogo campaign—which will not only be put toward Batugo’s medical expenses, but Gargano’s hurried relocation to L.A.—the crowd-sourced wedding welcomed a slew of donations. Those donated food and drink, photography, videography, makeup, accessories, balloons, hotel accommodations, flowers, music, wedding cake (“So many people wanted to donate the cake, it was crazy,” Skye noted), a white 1959 Rolls Royce, and, of course, the services of Skye and Guerrie. The total cost of the wedding, had it been paid for, would have run in the ballpark of $20,000, Guerrie noted.

The newlyweds said that having something positive to focus on has been vital to getting them through these past few weeks.

"There are so many bad things happening today, it's good to know there are good people out there, willing to help complete strangers," Gargano said.

Batugo told Shine just before the big day, “I think, in moments when I’m alone, and it’s quiet, like at the end of the day, I figure, oh, I’m still sick, and after this wedding I’ll have to still fight this cancer. But everyone has been coddling me with love, and I’m so grateful.” After the wedding, Batugo said that a personal highlight of the day had been the father-daughter dances, which Guerrie elaborated on for Shine.

“Instead of just doing the traditional ‘father-daughter’ dance, Jenn and Brian also chose to dance with the other’s respective parent. So Jenn danced with her dad, then his. And Brian danced with his mom, then hers. For that last one, their song choice was ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ by the Beach Boys,” she said. “Six-foot-plus Brian, and Jenn’s tiny little mom, and a message of ‘everything will turn out all right.’ Not too many dry eyes in the house at that moment.”

Roger and Chaz Ebert-A Marriage To Admire

I was greatly saddened by the the passing of Roger Ebert. I have always been inspired by his bravery, tenacity and zest for life as cancer mercilessly ravaged his body and significantly altered his way of life. I am even more inspired and awed after reading this article from "OMG" in Yahoo News. A remarkable man, a remarkable woman, an inspiring  friendship and marriage. 

For Roger Ebert, there was one person in his life who got a perennial thumbs up: his wife Chaz.

The fabled film critic found the love of his life relatively late in life, after spending most of his adult years as a bachelor (and even once going on a date with Oprah Winfrey). The woman he'd marry at age 50 would become his best friend and life partner right away, and after Ebert's cancer diagnosis more than a decade ago, would become his liaison to concerned fans (often using humor to share bad news) and the rock he leaned on throughout his illness, until the day he died.

“I am devastated by the loss of my love, Roger -- my husband, my friend, my confidante and oh-so-brilliant partner of over 20 years,” Chaz said via a statement on Thursday. “We had a lovely, lovely life together, more beautiful and epic than a movie. It had its highs and the lows, but was always experienced with good humor, grace and a deep abiding love for each other."

So who was Chaz Ebert and why was her relationship with Roger so special? Read on for a peek inside their marriage.

The scoop on Chaz Hammelsmith Ebert.
Chaz is a Chicago native and received a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and got her law degree from Chicago's DePaul College of Law, eventually working as a litigator at the law firm of Bell, Boyd, and Lloyd. She married an electrical engineer and had two children, divorcing after 17 years of marriage.

It was love at first sight … or at least second.
According to Roger, he was dining with Eppie Lederer, better known as advice columnist Ann Landers, after an AA meeting in 1989 (he first sought help for alcohol dependency 10 years earlier) and Ebert went to say hello to a couple of people he knew at a nearby table, who happened to be dining with trial attorney Chaz Hammelsmith. "I didn't know her, but I'd seen her before and was attracted. I liked her looks, her voluptuous figure, and the way she presented herself. She took a lot of care with her appearance and her clothes never looked quickly thrown together," Roger wrote in a blog post for the Chicago Sun-Times in July 2012, to mark their 20^th wedding anniversary. "She seemed to be holding the attention of her table. You never get anywhere with a woman you can't talk intelligently with."

Roger fell hard on their first date.
"She had a particular quality. She didn't seem to be a 'date' but an equal. She knew where she stood, and I found that attractive," he shared in the piece. "I was going out to Los Angeles a few days later, and I asked her to come along. We formed a serious bond rather quickly. It was an understood thing. I was in love, I was serious, I was ready for my life to change."

The couple in 2000. (Brenda Chase/Stringer/Getty Images)

She wooed him with her … grammar?
Both Chaz and Roger have talked about how, during the early days of their relationship the two would write love letters in the form of daily emails to each other. "Her love letters were poetic, idealistic and often passionate," he recalled. "I responded as a man and a lover. As a newspaperman, I observed she never, ever, made a copy-reading error."

Chaz quit her law job after they married so she could join Roger during his frequent travels, but would eventually become vice president of the Ebert Company.
Roger insisted it wasn't just a title, and just the business mind he needed to counter his. "She organized my contracts, protected my interests, negotiated, wheeled and dealed. I've never understood business and have no patience with business meetings or legal details," Roger wrote in the 2012 Sun-Times post. "I had a weakness for signing things just to make them go away. She observed this, and defended me. It was a partnership."

After Ebert had part of his jaw removed in 2006, the couple chose to eat their meals separately.
"I don't like to eat in front of him because it just seems kind of cruel," Chaz said during a 2010 interview on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." "He prefers to [have meals] private." Ebert had to be fed through an IV drip four times a day.

After her husband’s hip fracture late last year, Chaz kept fans in the loop with humor.
"Roger in hospital with hip fracture (tricky disco dance moves) but he is doing well, asking for computer, will probably tweet," she tweeted on December 7, followed a day later by, "Roger Sweetie, lets heal that fracture and get you Dancing With The Stars as soon as possible." She also expressed frustration a few weeks later: "Hospitals have up and down days. This is a down day, intense PT, but Roger is making progress. Fractured hip a bitch," she wrote alongside a younger photo of Roger.

Towards the end, the couple created a language of signals.
After his cancer robbed him of the ability to use his voice, Chaz was constantly by Ebert's side to help him communicate. While he often wrote notes, he used different hand signals to explain what he wanted, as demonstrated during the Oprah segment. He had a signal for asking Chaz to read to others from his notepad, one for requesting a trip to the men's room, and there was one signal, Chaz explained that had "a lot of meaning." When Roger placed his right hand on his heart in front of his wife, it meant, "I love you."

Rainy Day Weddings On The Central Coast: A Wet Bride Is A Lucky Bride!

Though here on the Central Coast of California we are known for beautiful, sunny days those of us who live here also know we can just as easily have rain! I've officiated at many spring and summer weddings where "out of the blue" we have a rainstorm.  To make sure your wedding day goes without a hitch here is a great article from loveandlobster.com by Christina Wnek.  Though this article is directed toward weddings on the New England Coast where rain is much more common, it seems a good idea to take tips from experts on the subject! Remember "Sposa bagnata, sposa fortunata!”

There’s an old superstition that rain on your wedding day is a lucky omen. The Italians even have a saying for it, “Sposa bagnata, sposa fortunata,” or “A wet bride is a lucky bride.”

Still, most brides would trade a little good fortune for the outdoor ceremony of their dreams. But if you’re tying the knot in coastal New England, you just can’t count on endless sunny skies. So remember another time-tested adage: A flexible bride is a happy bride. Make a backup plan.

Tip number one: Rent a tent. So says Kate Parker, one of our favorite wedding planners and a woman who knows how to prepare for New England’s unpredictable weather. Yes, a tent costs more, but this is not the West Coast, where the sun always shines. If you’re already planning on using a tent, consider ordering just one size larger so it can accommodate guests not only for the reception, but also the ceremony and cocktail hour, Kate suggests. The extra $200 will be well worth your peace of mind. The same goes for shelling out a bit more for a tent floor, so you’re not stuck dancing with dad in a muddy puddle.

Check out the lay of the land, as well. That verdant valley might look like the perfect ceremony site, but not if a downpour fills it with an inch of rain. Shoot for a level surface, and consider keeping your cocktail and reception tents within a short walk of each other, Kate says.

A couple of final notes on logistics, then we’ll get to all of the fun rainy day touches you might never have considered. Write up a communication plan in advance, so you can notify guests and vendors of a location change or other wet-weather contingencies. Be prepared to provide transportation as well. And try to treat your Plan B with the same appreciation for aesthetics as you do the dream vision for your day. If the contingency site for your ceremony is a cramped, drab hotel dining room, you might end up disappointed. “Your rain plan has to be as cool as your non-rain plan,” Kate says.

Now for the fun part. You may think of umbrellas as inclement weather necessities, but when they match your wedding colors, suddenly you’ve got themed accessories. And their counterparts, brightly colored galoshes and wellies, brighten up any drab day. If tracking down matching colors proves difficult, you can always go with classic white (including the ivory Weddington wellie with customizable ribbon and vintage lace-style umbrellas!) Imagine a portrait of you and your intended snuggled under an umbrella in your rain gear. Not bad, right?

And speaking of photography, the soft and balanced light on overcast days makes for flattering portraits free of harsh shadows. If you’d planned to have your portraits taken after the ceremony but a real downpour is looming, stay flexible and shoot them before you exchange vows. A good photographer will be prepared with alternate rainy-day portrait environments, but you can always schedule a backup session for after the big day.

Even more crucial than careful planning, however, is an up-for-anything attitude. Kate has seen brides both rise to the drab weather occasion and completely fall apart at the prospect of a few raindrops. “It’ll break you or make you,” she says. So remember, it’s a nice day for a wet wedding.