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Marry-thon Wedding for Hospice

24 February 2011

AN Essex couple are preparing to tackle a 26.2 mile long aisle in order to tie the knot during this year's London Marathon.

Katrina Scaife, 32, and Andrew Ford, 33, from Woodford Green, will be swapping fine footwear for trainers on 17 April, so they can run in memory of Andrew’s sister, Tina, who died in 2008 after battling cancer.

Twenty miles into the demanding race, they will leave the course for a ceremony in a nearby hotel, before finishing the run as Mr and Mrs.

The bride will wear a white dress, the groom a top hat, and they will be running with their bridesmaid, who signed up to the marathon especially to fill this role. Katrina hopes to throw her bouquet into the crowd after they cross the finish line, and then, despite the blisters, sweat and seized up muscles, they will attend their reception that evening.

“It will be the slowest first dance in history,” Andrew said. “We are hoping that after a quick lie down and shower, and perhaps a drop of champagne, that we will last the night - we’ll definitely be wearing flip flops to make it a bit less painful.”

Andrew, a printer and photographer, and Katrina, Development Manager for Sightsavers International, have been engaged for over three years, and decided on a break with tradition for their wedding following Tina’s death, when she was aged just 38, in 2008. Tina was a patient at Saint Francis Hospice, and died shortly after the marathon weekend.

 “We weren’t keen runners before, but then my sister had always said she’d wanted to run the marathon,” Andrew said.  “We watched it over her last weekend at home, and she gave me a look that said “you’ve got to do it now”. That sowed the seeds for our plan - we wanted to give something back to the hospice, and we also felt that this way, Tina would be a guest at our wedding.”

The pair have been in training ever since, and hope to raise £4,000 for Saint Francis, where Tina stayed for a month before she died. They have asked wedding guests to make a donation to the charity, rather than give presents.

“She was looked after and given some private space while things were falling apart,” said Andrew. “Being there gave her time to prepare herself, while she received the specialist care she needed, and she had her own space so the kids could come in to see her. All this gave her a small amount of control where there wasn’t much.”

Although both have run a marathon before – Katrina in Mumbai and Andrew in Brighton - they are already feeling nervous. Andrew explained: “Well, the one rule is don’t stop when you run a marathon, so we’re trying not to think about that! Worst case, we will have to walk, but we are hoping the adrenaline carries us across that finish line.

“The Brighton marathon was a wonderful experience, but it was also the hardest thing I’ve ever done. So I’m hoping the wedding balances this one out, and as we’re doing it together it already feels like it’s going to be rather special. Tina would say that we’re idiots! She had a terribly dry wicked sense of humour, she’ll be smiling down on us I’m sure.”

To sponsor Andrew and Katrina, visit www.justgiving.com/runningwedding. 

If all 36,000 London Marathon runners were invited as guests to Andrew and Katrina's wedding, they would need:
2 Wembley sized football pitches for a dancefloor
26 St Paul's Cathedrals to seat the guests
290 large 3-tier wedding cakes
600 bottles of bubbly
180,000 pieces of cutlery

Feeling inspired to run for the hospice? There are plenty of ways to do so, from short fun runs to marathons. Visit our running events page to find out about runs such as the Adidas Women's 5k Challenge, the Royal Park's Half Marathon or the Santathon.

 

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