A year ago today, I had the amazing honor of photographing Chris & Britta’s vow renewal wedding.  Their story is one of true, strong, everlasting love, and I was so excited to be a part of it.  It all started with Christine Darden; owner of Celebrations of Love, a planning company in KC.  Britta was her neighbor, and they became close.  Christine learned of Britta’s story and just knew that she needed to do something!  Before I tell how I come into this story, here is Britta and Chris’s story from Britta’s perspective:

My battle with breast cancer started at age nine when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was 34 years old. At that time, every type of treatment was very experimental and she tried them all—everything from having radiation injected into her spine to massive chemotherapy treatments that put her in the hospital for months. Unfortunately, she lost her battle at 36 years old. Growing up, cancer was always in the back of my mind.  But at age 34, I never thought I would go into my yearly mammogram and find out a month later that I had breast cancer. At the time, I had just started dating my now-husband, Chris. When I called to tell him the news, I remember saying, “I know this is going to be a really tough battle. If you want to leave me, I completely understand.” I will never forget his reply. He simply said, “I’m not leaving the woman that I’m in love with”—and that was the very first time that I heard I love you from my husband. I had a lumpectomy and lymph node removal surgery, and when the pathology came back, 12 out of the 24 lymph nodes had been contaminated with cancer. My surgeon assigned me to Dr. Christopher Sirridge, who was and still is on the cutting edge of cancer research and cancer treatment. After losing my mother when she was only 36, I was very nervous walking into that first doctor’s appointment. My husband and I had no idea what was in store. I underwent eight rounds of chemotherapy and 10 months of radiation, all in the hopes that I would be cancer-free. After my first surgery, the pathology showed the lump was 97% estrogen positive, which meant that simply being a woman was feeding the cancer in my right breast. 

Chris decided to ask me to marry him, even knowing that he was going to have to take care of most of the wedding plans. And he did an amazing job! Because I was going through cancer treatments at the time we got married, I had no hair and I had to wear a wig. We couldn’t have a big, festive party because I was just too tired from my chemo treatments. It was an amazing evening committing our love together, knowing that it wasn’t going to be an easy journey. The blessing is that I made it through the wedding and to the reception without getting sick or passing out or even feeling ill at any time. Because I was in the middle of treatments, Chris and I could not go on a honeymoon. We realize that not having a honeymoon was an incredibly wonderful sacrifice for me eventually being cancer-free and in remission. 

As the months and years progressed, I got further and further away from my cancer treatments and closer to clear mammograms and blood work. To ensure that my treatment after chemotherapy and radiation really worked, we had to make a tough decision about whether or not we were going to have children. Because of the type of cancer that I had, getting pregnant would mean risking the cancer coming back. Within the first two years of our marriage, we made the decision to go ahead and have the surgery that would keep me from having kids but sustain my life cancer-free. Even to this day, there is a piece of me that wonders if that was a good decision, but as the days go by, I realize that it would’ve brought my cancer back if we had not gone through with the surgery. Five years and then 10 years and then 15 years later, I was still cancer-free. Last May, Chris, who was the worship leader and executive pastor at Cambridge Church, lost his job because the church closed. This left us financially in a little bit of a pickle and we had to figure out what God’s next plan was for me and Chris. Then in July, I was sitting at work and noticed that I had a lump in my left breast. Because it had been 15 years since my last cancer, I thought, surely this could not be breast cancer and it’s probably just my bra which means it’s probably nothing. Despite that thought, I decided to not prolong figuring out what this lump was. I went into my oncologist and that day, they had me go in for a mammogram and a sonogram. As Chris and I drove to the mammogram, we kept thinking to ourselves surely this would not be cancer. After the mammogram and the sonogram, the doctors did not like what they saw and scheduled me for a biopsy. It was probably one of the most painful procedures I have had, not because the doctors were not doing their job correctly, but because they wanted to make sure they removed my lump as well as another lump they found, along with all of the tissue around it, for the pathology report. Even though Chris and I prayed and hoped that the report would not come back indicating cancer, it did. The blessing in all of this was it was not the same type of cancer that I had before, which meant it had not been lying dormant somewhere else in my body and decided to come back again. I went through many scans and tests to see if there were any more cancer cells or lumps and there were not. The course of action that they decided to take this time was chemotherapy again, very aggressive four-session treatments. I also met with a surgeon who recommended finding out if I was genetically pre-disposed. If the test came back positive, I would have a double mastectomy. The test did come back positive. On December 3, I had my double mastectomy and decided not to have reconstructive surgery.  Prior to my second diagnosis of cancer, Chris and I had planned to renew our wedding vows. We felt God was calling us to recommit the love we have for each other and to be witnesses of his great love and blessings. Unfortunately, we had to put that off because my husband was unemployed and I was the only one working with the probability of enormous medical bills.  In God’s amazing way, on the day of my first chemo treatment, Chris got a phone call with an opportunity to lead worship at a church here in Kansas City. Since then, I have made it through my chemo treatments and my surgery, and I feel like I am becoming stronger and stronger each day.  

As of June of 2015 I am in full remission for a second time. Going through this second round of cancer, I have learned the true meaning of friendship, God’s infinite love and his ability to put people in your life who want to take care of you and give you gifts of hope and faith that you could never imagine. Someday, I want to give back to the breast cancer community by educating women of all ages and letting them know that early detection—whether you have to go through cancer once or twice—is the key to survival.

Lastly, I have to share the feature of this big day in Ink Magazine, and The Kansas City Star!

Photography – Spencer Studios  |  Planner – Celebrations of Love  |  Church – Jacob’s Well  |  Cake – Icing on the Cake  |  Floral Design – Poppy & Clover Floral  |  Catering – One Block South  |  Bartending – Top Shelf Bartending  |  DJ – Elite Sounds Entertainment