Cancer bride, age 23, tells of joy as she's gifted free Christmas wedding after battling disease three times

A young bride undergoing cancer treatment for the third time has told of her joy after being gifted a free Christmas-themed wedding.

Katelen Cheshire, age 23, described her marriage to 29-year-old Billy Green as a "Christmas miracle" after more than 30 suppliers and the venue provided everything for them free of charge. The couple tied the knot at a festive farmhouse ceremony.

All expenses were paid for by suppliers while use of the venue, run by Cindy Edwards, was free of charge for the newlyweds. The bride says there “aren’t enough thank-yous to give” for her special day. Katelen said: “The day before we were shown round the venue all set up.

“They turned on the Christmas music and led us into the barn, we all burst out crying because of how amazing it was. It was so beautiful and so much fun.”

The celebration included a snow machine and a string quartet while alpacas were dressed up as the bride and groom and stables were decorated like a “real winter wonderland."

Heart-warming

Cindy, 45, who runs the Shrewsbury-based venue said: “Katelen came to me to book a wedding for November in August. It was a quick turnaround because she is poorly, so I decided to offer wedding for free and plan it for her.”

Cindy managed to get 34 local companies involved to create the whole thing without costing the Telford couple a penny. She added: “It was very heart-warming to do, it was such a lovely day, and they could not have been more thankful for it, it was a great thing to be part of.”

Katelen is currently undergoing stem cell therapy to treat stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma. She had been in remission twice, but found out it had returned earlier this year. She was determined that her illness would not stop her enjoying her magical day.

She said: “I was feeling a bit ill on the day and had a bad back but, because of excitement, I just pushed through. I slept it all off the next day. Billy was gobsmacked, he was so nervous, and thought it might be stressful. But by the end he said he hadn’t enjoyed himself as much ever, it was so much fun.”

All the suppliers who took part were hiding in a separate barn to surprise the couple later in the evening. Katelen said: “Cindy surprised us by getting all of them in the barn, then they all came to the wedding and joined in the celebrations. It was so nice to have them all there and thank them for all their hard work.

"We all had mulled wine and mince pies and it was lovely for the suppliers to see what we had created." She added: “It was just perfect. All our family were crying, there are simply not enough thank yous we can say to everyone.”