A team of nurses in Tennessee rallied together to help create an unforgettable wedding for a bride and her terminally ill mother.
Samantha Barry told WATE that she and her fiancé, Phillip Bastelica, had initially planned to get married in August 2025. However, when her mother Lynn, who was terminally ill, was moved into hospice care, their timeline suddenly changed.
"When we got there, it was kind of a shock of what we saw with [my mother] who was battling for over 10 years," Barry told the outlet. She added that she and her fiancé "decided to have a wedding that day" to ensure that her mother could experience their nuptials.
"[It was] not something we definitely planned on having, but my husband went out to Walmart and got himself a suit. I had, just in case of emergency, brought my mom's wedding dress," Barry recalled.
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She shared the plan with the nurses who had been caring for Lynn on the Progressive Care Unit at Knoxville's UT Medical Center, and they immediately sprung into action to help make the bride's wedding dream come true.
"When you go to nursing school, you don't think you'll plan a wedding, but that was really important for the patient and family that day," Kayla Daugherty, nurse manager for the Progressive Care Unit, told WATE.
Shailee Dowdy, the team leader nurse, said she put in calls to different sections of the medical center to see what items they could get on such short notice for the wedding.
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"I called dietary and I was like, 'Hey we need a cake at this time,' " Dowdy recalled. "I know my nurse manager got a hold of the gift shop, she got a hold of the marketing team. I was like, 'We need photos. This has to be a whole wedding.' "
Another nurse, Brittany McCoy, shared with the outlet that the staff even found "little decorations" to form an "aisle" to give the bride a "special walking space." In a span of four hours, the team was able to get everything together to create the wedding for Barry and Bastelica.
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The nurses didn't just take part in planning the ceremony -- which was held at UT Medical Center's Absher Chapel just before Christmas on Dec. 23, 2024 -- but were a part of it as well. They brought Lynn down to witness the nuptials in the front row, and one of the nurses played "Here Comes the Bride" on their phone as Barry walked down the aisle with her father.
"It truly did feel like, you know, when you get married you expect to have all the supporting cast around you, and they went out of their way to facetime my family," Bastelica recalled of the ceremony to WATE.
The nurses even posed for a few photos with the newlyweds and Lynn. For Barry, it was a priceless memory that she will hold onto forever.
"All of the nurses that helped us, we just want to personally thank them. It was so special for us," she told WATE. "We're happy we tied the knot."