Sell story about your wedding day?
Did something unusual happen on your wedding day? Did you give birth or fall ill? Were you jilted at the altar?
If so don’t despair as you can at least sell your story. If you have a real-life wedding story to sell contact me.
This is how Sharon Boks’ story about how she had a heart attack just days before her wedding appeared in the Daily Mail.
Sharon also wanted to sell her story for charity and a plug for the British Heart Foundation appeared at the bottom of the story.
By ALISON SMITH SQUIRE
19th October 2010
Running on nervous energy: Bride Sharon Ransley suffered a heart attack a week before her wedding. It is one of the most stressful events in a woman’s life.
And for bride Sharon Ransley the pressure to ensure she had the wedding of her dreams triggered a heart attack.
The office manager had been preparing for her big day for 18 months. But a week after her hen night, and as she made the final touches to plans for her £9,000 country hotel ceremony and reception, she collapsed with chest pains.
Despite her protests that she was simply having a panic attack, her fiancé Mark Boks, a 45-year-old landscape gardener, rang for an ambulance. At hospital, medical staff fought to restart her heart. And, incredibly, just over a week later the couple managed to walk up the aisle.
Last night the new Mrs Sharon Boks, 39, said: ‘No one expected the wedding would go ahead. ‘But Mark and I had spent 18 months looking forward to it. Many of our 65 guests were flying in from abroad and we had booked a sit-down wedding breakfast. ‘My bespoke ivory dress was in my wardrobe, the flowers had been chosen and a luxury honeymoon to Thailand was paid for.
‘After all the planning and hard work, I was absolutely determined to get married.’ Describing her heart attack, she said: ‘I had spent the day sorting out the seating plan and when I went to bed I felt quite stressed. ‘So when I woke up at 5am hyperventilating and shaking I put it down to a panic attack.’ Following an hour-long resuscitation procedure at Basildon Hospital, the bride-to-be was transferred to Broomfield Hospital near her home in Chelmsford, Essex.
‘I was just grateful to be alive,’ she said. ‘After two days I was allowed home but told to take things easy. However, it seemed a shame to waste all my hard work. ‘So Mark and I decided we would go through with the wedding. It seemed a miracle to finally walk down the aisle.
‘Amazingly, I managed to have the first dance, and the fact I had survived such a nightmare made the day more poignant. Tests later revealed Mrs Boks, who married in March, had undiagnosed diabetes, which probably raised her heart attack risk. ‘The stress and excitement was the final trigger,’ she added. ‘It’s only now I can see that although I loved preparing for my big day I was also running on nervous energy and adrenaline.’
According to the psychiatric Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale – which lists the 43 most stressful events that might cause illness – getting married comes seventh. First is death of a spouse, followed by divorce.
Wedding planner Liz Taylor said many brides suffer ‘pre-nuptial stress’ and ‘really struggle’.
The British Heart Foundation is raising awareness of heart disease in women to show it does not affect only middle-aged men.
