Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 1, 1994 TAG: 9404010191
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A ruptured appendix. A rehearsal minus the groom. A wheelchair waiting at ceremony's end. A wedding night at Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
"It's been an ordeal," Christy Wenzel said.
The March 19 wedding had been nearly nine months in the planning. It would be in Roanoke - Christy's home - at First Christian Church; the reception at Kazim Temple.
There would be six bridal attendants and an equal number of groomsmen. Close to 500 guests would be invited. Anthony's grandmother, uncle and aunt would fly in from Germany.
It would be the event of a lifetime.
Plans did not include a ruptured appendix. But Anthony's appendix did - three days before the wedding.
Anthony, an electrical engineer, was in Charlottesville, where he and Christy live. What felt like a bad flu bug instead required emergency surgery.
"I thought `There are 300 people who will be in church on Saturday afternoon. I'd better make this happen'," Anthony said.
Anthony's doctor had arranged for laproscopic surgery, lessening trauma to the body and making recuperation quicker. Still, he wasn't given doctor's permission to attend the wedding until that very morning. And that permission was given on condition that he go to the ceremony and stay only briefly at the reception.
Anthony's parents drove from Roanoke to Charlottesville hours before the late-afternoon event, picked up their son and delivered him to his wedding.
With a distended stomach, a dose of painkillers and a huge grin, Anthony stood while Christy walked down the aisle. The couple sat during most of the ceremony, on a bench provided by a hotel.
They stood to exchange vows and walked out together, though slowly. A wheelchair was there waiting for Anthony.
"The emotion of it all kind of blocked all the pain out," he said. "I knew I wanted to make the best of it."
The reception was a blur, the couple, both 28, said. They did have their first dance - again, slowly - and cut their wedding cake, though Anthony could not eat any.
They left in a limousine, which deposited them not at the bed-and-breakfast where Anthony had reserved a wedding night room but at the entrance to Roanoke Memorial Hospital's emergency room.
The story might have ended there, with the couple spending their wedding weekend in a hospital suite. But the intended short hospital stay was lengthened by nearly two weeks when Anthony developed an infection, requiring more surgery.
Christy has since seen little but the hospital suite. She's slept on a pull-out bed, opened a pile of wedding gifts and adjusted to married life as best she can under the circumstances.
"I've only gone back to Charlottesville once, for a meeting," said Christy, a blood recruiter for Virginia Blood Services. "People have had to pry me out."
But the story has a pleasant ending. Anthony is expected to be discharged today.
The Barbados honeymoon has only been postponed.
"It actually took a lot of pressure off," Christy said. "The day didn't have to be as perfect. And it made it more meaningful that he was there.
"But at the same time it makes you think about what's more important - making sure you're healthy and there for each other. It's not the day."
In the couple's wedding video, you can see Anthony's grin.
And during the exchange of vows - when the minister gets to the part about "in sickness and health" - you hear laughter.
by CNB