{"id":1410,"date":"2023-06-29T00:34:41","date_gmt":"2023-06-28T22:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/?p=1410"},"modified":"2023-06-29T00:34:41","modified_gmt":"2023-06-28T22:34:41","slug":"their-wedding-day-had-no-gown-and-no-photographer-so-97-yo-bride-and-98-yo-groom-recreated-it-77-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/?p=1410","title":{"rendered":"Their wedding day had no gown and no photographer. So 97-YO bride and 98-YO groom recreated it 77 years later"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1944, when Frankie King married her high school sweetheart, Royce, there wasn\u2019t a wedding dress, let alone a photographer.<\/p>\n

The couple had only days to plan their wedding because Royce only had a two-day leave before rushing off overseas for his military deployment.<\/p>\n

Royce returned to their small town of Oelwein, Iowa, on his two day leave and married the love of his life before heading to fight in World War II.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Their wedding day had no gown and no photographer. So 97-YO bride and 98-YO groom recreated it 77 years later<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was stationed as a lieutenant in the Air Force\u2026 he just got his pilot wings,\u201d their daughter, Sue Bilodeau, explained. \u201cHe got a short leave. They had been engaged about six months, so they decided to have a wedding before he was deployed overseas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple raised two children over the years and remain happily married to each other.<\/p>\n

Frankie and Royce still live in Oelwein while being looked after by a hospice nurse, working for St. Croix Hospice.<\/p>\n

On 16 September which was their 77th wedding anniversary the nurse asked Frankie to see photographs from their wedding day.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd mom said, \u2018Well, we don\u2019t have a picture because we actually didn\u2019t have a photographer that day,\u2019\u201d Sue said.<\/p>\n

The nurse then took matters working with the other staff members at the St. Croix Hospice to recreate Frankie and Royce\u2019s wedding day. They dressed Frankie in a beautiful wedding gown.<\/p>\n

While their wedding day was recreated, Frankie wore a 1940s vintage gown while 98-year-old Royce donned on his Air Force uniform, which is what he also wore when he married his wife seventy years ago.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sue helped her mother put on the wedding dress and said, \u201c\u2026It was really sweet and touching, how she looked at herself in the gown. She said, \u2018Should I wear my glasses or not? I didn\u2019t have glasses that day.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Wear your glasses, you\u2019re beautiful this way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

While the sun was shining Royce stood outside in the backyard waiting for his bride and had a handkerchief held over his eyes for the \u201cfirst look.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018Are you ready to see your bride?\u2019 and took the blindfold off,\u201d Sue explained. \u201cHe had just the biggest smile the rest of the day. It was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Staff from the hospice put something touching together for the elderly couple. \u201cHow can you not have a sense of overwhelming emotion?\u201d said St. Croix Hospice CEO, Heath Bartness. \u201cThe connectivity you almost feel that you were a part of this, and thinking back to what it was like in World War II the first time, and how meaningful and how emotional this second opportunity to do this was. There\u2019s an overwhelming sense of pride in not just the company and what the organization did, but more so just as an act of humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sue was extremely grateful seeing her parents\u2019 wedding day recreated, \u201cSomething to take away [from this story] would be, they\u2019ve been through a lot\u2014as anybody does\u2014year after year. And through struggles and good times, they\u2019ve managed to find a way to put their love and devotion above everything else to make it work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1944, when Frankie King married her high school sweetheart, Royce, there wasn\u2019t a wedding dress, let alone a photographer. The couple had only days to plan their wedding because Royce only had a two-day leave before rushing off overseas for his military deployment. Royce returned to their small town of Oelwein, Iowa, on his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1418,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410\/revisions\/1418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}