Hospital Staff Throws Wedding So Father with Cancer Can Escort Daughter Down the Aisle

A team of doctors and nurses at an Illinois hospital rallied together to fulfill a long-held dream for one father who is battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer: the chance to escort his daughter down the aisle.

Patient Dan Benway’s daughter, Grace Benway, had planned to celebrate her wedding with fiancé Thomas Decourcey next month in Colorado, and Dan, 66, hoped to be in attendance at the out-of-state nuptials, per NBC 5 Chicago. However, his declining health led the family to make other plans.

“This week, he has just been in a decline, and all the nurses were nice enough to help us plan something,” Grace told the outlet.

In under 24 hours, staff at Endeavor’s Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, where Dan is receiving treatment, pulled together an impromptu wedding for Grace and Thomas. Details included securing an officiant and a guitar player for the ceremony. The bride hurried to a store to find a dress.

“It was something we knew was a possibility, and we were just excited to be able to do it,” Grace said of the hospital wedding, per the Daily Herald. “It means a lot to [my dad].”

She and Thomas flew from their home in Golden, Colo., to Chicago on Wednesday, Sept. 17, and the wedding took place the following afternoon.

A small group of the couple’s loved ones gathered in the hospital’s outdoor butterfly garden, along with a crew of doctors and nurses, for the ceremony. Dan rolled in his wheelchair alongside Grace, holding her hand as she walked down the aisle.

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“I’m a blessed man. I couldn’t be more blessed,” Dan said, before thanking everyone who helped organize the ceremony so quickly, per NBC 5 Chicago.

The hospital’s chaplain, Wilson Angumei, ended up officiating the wedding and noted that he believed it to be the first at the facility in his 25-year tenure there.

“I was saying, ‘OK, do you have a priest or pastor or somebody to come over?’ And the father said, ‘How bout you?’ ” Angumei recalled, per the Daily Herald. “ ’It would be my honor,’ I told him.”

Dan was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in November 2023. Since then, he has undergone 40 rounds of chemotherapy and had a Whipple procedure to remove tumors, according to the Daily Herald. Up until April of this year, he was commuting from Arlington Heights to his job in downtown Chicago at Chase Bank.

Grace described her dad as a “fighter.” Dan said, “I’m trying my best.”

The proud father also shared his joy over his daughter and new son-in-law’s marriage.

“They’re meant for each other. A very lucky man to have her. Probably the best I could ask for as a father,” he said, per the Daily Herald.