Dying dad gets married so he can see his children as bridesmaids and a pageboy

Pete and Jody Bromley’s children had always asked when they could be bridesmaids and a page boy at their parents’ wedding.

The couple kept putting off tying the knot, even after being together for 14 years.

But when Pete discovered he had a terminal brain tumour in July, the parents knew they needed to finally get married.

The big day took place on 31 August, with Molly, 11, Ollie, eight, and one-year-old Paisley all taking part.

Pete, 57, had started to experience low mood, twitching hands, confusion, and poor coordination back in June.

The NHS worker suspected something was wrong, but blood work tests were inconclusive. It wasn’t until Pete fell out of bed and Jody took him to A&E that brain scans revealed he had an incurable tumour.

Jody, 36, said: ‘He kept saying he was really down and felt really low and he kept getting headaches but we just thought he had depression due to being isolated.

‘My brother offered to take him for a fishing trip with our son, which I thought was a great idea but he ended up getting lost in Scotland with our little boy for 13 hours.

‘They had to phone the Scottish police and when they found him they were both safe but Pete had driven 200 miles away from where they were fishing.

‘I thought he might have had some kind of breakdown but then I noticed that he started twitching with his hands and his coordination wasn’t right.

‘I started getting very upset and told Pete “this isn’t you”. I wondered if he’d had a stroke and I even said to him “what if you’ve got a brain tumour?”

‘One night he fell out of bed and I decided to take him to A&E and insisted that we needed a head scan because I could tell it was neurological.

‘The results came back and the doctor just said “I’m really sorry, you are right, it’s a brain tumour”.

‘I asked him to be as honest as I could be with me, I said “is Pete going to die” and he just said “yes”.’

Pete was transferred to Salford Royal specialist brain unit where he was diagnosed with a stage 4 glioblastoma in the centre of his brain – an aggressive and inoperable brain tumour and another malignant tumour in his front lobe.

The devastated dad underwent a four-hour surgery to remove the tumour from his frontal lobe, but doctors could only offer radiotherapy and chemotherapy to slow the growth of the tumour in the centre of his brain.

After doctors suggested that he had just a matter of months left to live, the dad, who also has four other children from a previous relationship, insisted it was finally time to wed his love of 14 years.

The couple tied the knot on 31 August, with their children as bridesmaids and pageboy.

Jody said: ‘From about the age of five, our eldest daughter would nag Pete, saying “daddy when are you going to marry mummy?”

‘We’ve always wanted to get married but life just gets in the way.

‘One year I thought “do we get married or do we go on holiday?”

‘We only had enough money to do one and I thought it’s selfish to get married and spend all of that and one day when we could go away for two weeks with all of the children.

‘We started saving up again and then we had a little baby a year ago so it got put on the back burner.

‘When Pete got ill both of us wanted to get married as soon as possible before he deteriorated any more.’

Friends and family in Macclesfield, Cheshire, helped the couple to exchange their vows by raising almost £5,000 for the surprise ceremony which they organised for the couple.

Jody added: ‘I never expected people to be so kind and to do this for us, but I couldn’t have asked for anything better.

‘It was the best day of all our lives and it meant the world to the children to finally get their wish to see their parents get married.’

‘You never think that it’s going to happen to you but when life throws you an awful curve-ball like this it puts everything into perspective.

‘On his hospital bed I told Pete I wanted him to be able to dance like nobody was watching and that’s exactly what we did.

‘It really was the fairytale wedding we had always dreamed of, I can’t thank all our friends, family and people that donated enough.’

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