Groom with cancer arranges wedding in two weeks (From Daily Echo)

Groom with cancer arranges wedding in two weeks

10:29am Saturday 25th July 2009 in

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FOR most couples planning a wedding is often a complex and drawn out affair.

Even with months to prepare, booking venues, agreeing guest lists, hiring caters and fretting over what to wear can be a daunting prospect.

But when Michael Collins found out he may have only months to live time was not a luxury on his side.

He sat down with long-term partner Carole Eastman to draw up a list of things to do before he dies.

Top of the list was getting married.

Two hectic weeks later the biking mad couple will today roll up at Southampton register office in a noisy procession of around 50 motorcyclists from across the county to tie the knot after almost ten years together.

And while bride Carole, 48, will wearing a traditional ivory dress, Michael, 58, will be donning his jeans and leathers to hop on his impressive Boom tricycle.

“It wouldn’t be a biker wedding if I was wearing a suit,” he said.

Carole admitted the prospect of planning the wedding initially filled her with “sheer panic”.

But after booking the register office, friends rallied around to help with dresses, offer reception venues, catering and everything else fell into place.

The couple, from Brownhill Road, North Baddesley, even found time to organise a hen and stag party in Southampton for last night.

Michael, who works as an auto electrician who was diagnosed with terminal cancer of the pancreas, said: “It will really mean a lot to me. Especially sharing it with our friends.

“I’d really like to thank them for all the help and support they have given me which has made it quite easy.”

Bucket list Carole, a stall holder, said: “We always thought we would do it but not knowing how long we had got together we drew up a bucket list and getting married was the first thing we put down.”

The couple’s six children from previous relationships will be joining them for the wedding ceremony.

Guests will then head to a party at The Grove Pub in Woolston with Michael and Carole leading the way on their ribbon-strewn trike.

The newlyweds will then set about working through the rest of their bucket list: visiting all old fiends, flying to Paris and New York and taking a camping holiday with Michael’s pet Rottweiler and parrot.