Stage 4 cancer canceled their wedding. How love — and a little help — kept them smiling

Samantha Snellen's wedding band was engraved with Oct. 9, 2022, her white dress had been altered and the guest list had been confirmed.

Then six days before the wedding, the groom started coughing up blood.

Suddenly the small "I do" magnets she'd made as favors, the catering, the venue and even that date they'd so carefully selected didn't matter as her fiancé, Jesse, checked into the emergency room. He hadn't been feeling well for a couple of weeks, but the Bullitt County couple hoped they could put off the diagnosis until after their honeymoon. Whatever the tests showed, they could face together after the wedding.

But as his symptoms worsened, it became unclear just how much time the 40-somethings might have after they said: "I do."

"What if?" Samantha recalled saying. "What if we put off something that could be lifesaving right now?"

By the end of that week, doctors put a port in Jesse's chest.

He had stage four lung cancer.

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Samantha canceled everything — the honeymoon, the hair appointments and every other last-minute detail. She texted Jana Holland, an ordained minister and their wedding's event manager, to find out from a financial standpoint what needed to be done to stop the wedding.

When Jana asked whether they wanted to postpone, Samantha wrote back with the diagnosis.

"Consider it stopped," Jana replied, stunned.

The minister stared at her phone and cried.

"Is there anything I can do?" she asked.

A pizza box and marriage proposal

From their first meeting several months before, Jana was excited to perform Samantha and Jesse's marriage. They were a fun, laid back and easy-going couple. They certainly seemed to be in love.

Samantha and Jesse first connected online on Facebook Dating, scrolling through pictures and swapping messages. He didn’t have many photos of himself, but he was attracted to an image of her in a camouflage beanie. When they finally met in person at a restaurant on March 1, 2020, they just "clicked." They shared the same values, and they both had stable, long-term careers.

While the circumstances of their wedding week were unthinkable, Samantha and Jesse's relationship started the way so many other partnerships do.

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Perhaps the greatest proof, though, came from Samantha’s daughters. Michaela, 15, and Kynlee, 8, were smitten with him immediately, and Jesse ― who admittedly was uncomfortable around children ― felt the same.

Nearly two years later, when the time came to propose, Jesse clued in her daughters ahead of the big moment, and they were thrilled to know and keep the secret.

Every year, Jesse's family orders Hometown Pizza for a holiday celebration at his sister's, but in 2021, he tracked down an empty pizza box before the party and stashed it among the pies.

"Go make your plate," he suggested to Samantha.

And when she lifted the lid, expecting to reach for a slice, instead she found an engagement ring in the box with a note that said "will you marry me?"

She grabbed him, hugged him and cried.

"So yes? No? Maybe?" he asked in between her tears.

The answer, clearly, was "yes."

Planning and canceling every wedding detail

Samantha started planning immediately. Their lucky number is nine. Her birthday, his birthday, and the anniversary of when they made their relationship official all fell on the ninth day of different months.

They flipped through the calendar looking for a ninth that fell on a weekend and chose Sunday, Oct. 9, 2022.

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They signed a contract with Jana and her business Pop Goes the Wedding at Rivers Edge Events and Rentals in Shepardsville. Samantha bought a dress from David's Bridal, and she helped the girls pick out what they’d wear for the ceremony. Michaela prepared a maid of honor speech.

Jesse loved racing remote control cars with his friends, so he rigged up one of his trucks to be their ring bearer. The groom’s best friend was going to stand in the back and drive it up the aisle.

The couple ordered mints as favors that were printed with "Samantha and Jesse, Mint to Be, Oct. 9, 2022." They booked a honeymoon in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

Samantha had worked out every little detail, down to getting that wedding band engraved with the date. But standing in that hospital, she knew none of that was as important as Jesse getting well.

That's why she had wedding planner Jana put a stop to it all.

Meanwhile, Jesse kept telling every doctor he spoke to at the hospital that he and Samantha were going to get married on Sunday.

And sure enough, they did.

When 'life and death is on a border, you really find out what matters'

Jana would have married them in the hospital if it had come to that, but the groom was discharged on Oct. 7. He couldn’t go to the wedding they’d planned, but when Jana asked "Is there anything I can do?" she meant it.

"At the moment where life and death is on a border, you really find out what matters," she said. "And you know, the big reception is a lot of fun — but they wanted to get married."

So she refunded the whole event, and then brought the wedding to them.

With less than 48 hours to go before the day printed on that ring, Jana rallied the vendors and resources. She reordered and picked up the catering herself. She brought 20 chairs for their immediate family, and set them up on a vacant plot of land the Snellens had purchased near their home.

Oct. 9, 2022, turned out to be a lovely early autumn day where the sunshine danced over the open field around them.

Samantha wore her wedding dress, and that remote control car drove the rings down the aisle.

Jesse had enough strength to stand through the ceremony, but by the time it came to cut the cake, he needed to sit down.

Jana held back tears, as she watched the Snellens live out their wedding vows minutes after they said them.

“For better or worse, in sickness and in health," Jana said, recalling the ceremony. "You're choosing to stand on this day that you thought was going to be the fun, flawless day, and you're committing to each other not knowing what tomorrow holds."

That tomorrow hasn’t been easy, either.

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'This is what we've dealt with, and we're going to deal with it'

The newlyweds went to Jesse's first oncology appointment on the day they were supposed to leave for their honeymoon. As they sat across from the doctor and mapped out a treatment plan, cancer suddenly seemed even more real than it did a few days before in the hospital.

Over the past four months, chemotherapy has shrunk most of the tumors that spread rampantly through Jesse’s body. He still has a large tumor lingering on one of his lymph nodes, and he's headed for radiation treatments in the next couple of weeks.

The Snellens don't expect he'll ever be cancer free, but they are hopeful he can live with it for a while. Doctors have never given him a true prognosis, and they take comfort in that.

And even though their future looks quite a bit different than the day Jesse put that engagement ring in the empty pizza box, he's still looking forward.

He wants to build on the land where they said their vows.

A new house would give the newlyweds a home that’s truly theirs, and shift where they live now into a place Michaela and Kynlee can come back to when they’re older.

For the moment, though, the family's focus is on Jesse regaining his strength.

"This is what we've dealt with, and we're going to deal with it," Samantha said. "And we're doing it."

In sickness and in health, til death do they part.

Features columnist Maggie Menderski writes about what makes Louisville, Southern Indiana and Kentucky unique, wonderful, and occasionally, a little weird. If you've got something in your family, your town or even your closet that fits that description — she wants to hear from you. Say hello at mmenderski@courier-journal.com or 502-582-4053.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Cancer tried to cancel a KY couple's wedding. Love made it happen anyway