Romantic Simon Flowers, 29, needed emergency surgery for a perforated bowel just days before he was due to get hitched to 23-year-old Natalie Whitehead.
He hoped to be discharged in time for his dream wedding on 23 June but doctors warned him he was too poorly to walk down the aisle.
Simon Flowers and his wife Natalie © NTI
Rather than cancel their big day, the couple decided to switch venues at the last minute and married in the hospital chapel.
Simon and Natalie, who saved £14,500 for their dream wedding and reception in a luxury countryside hotel, are even spending their honeymoon in hospital.
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After saying ‘I do’ Simon was taken back to the ward for treatment before posing for photographs in the grounds of University Hospital Coventry.
Natalie, a staff nurse in the same hospital, said: “A hospital is probably the last place I'd have chosen to get married but in the end it didn't matter because I just wanted to marry Simon.
“The hospital staff were wonderful and organised confetti for us and helped us prepare for the big day - we couldn't have asked for more.
“I wore my dress and my bridesmaids wore their dresses, the men all wore suits and it was all really lovely.
“All the nurses and doctors who had been helping Simon came to the ceremony and it was amazing.
It was better than we could ever have planned. I know it sounds cheesy, but it was the best day of my life.
“The hospital were so good about it as well, they let me stay with Simon in his bed with a 'Just married, do not disturb' sign on the door to the room on the wedding night.
“That night we shared Simon's hospital bed, we just lay there in our pyjamas watching DVDs. Everyone has been wonderful. People keep poking their head round the door to say congratulations.”
Simon, a police officer with West Midlands Police, was rushed to hospital in May after suffering crippling stomach pains and diarrhoea.
Doctors diagnosed him with Ulcerative Colitis - ulcers on the bowel which cause perforations - and he was given a course of steroids.
Two weeks ago he was rushed back into hospital for emergency surgery when doctors discovered he had a life threatening hole in his bowel.
He was rushed into surgery but because of complications he fell into a coma and he was put on a ventilator in intensive care.
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Simon and Natalie on their wedding day © NTISince then he spent every day in hospital but had hoped to be discharged in time for his wedding.
Natalie, who is three months pregnant with the couple's first child, said: “He had a hole in his bowel which they stitched up.
“But when they tried to wake him up he didn't respond and had to be put on a ventilator.
“The hospital phoned me up and told me the news, saying the next 24 hours would be critical so we were fearing the worst. At one point before the operation Simon grabbed my hand and told me not to be nervous.
“He then got all serious and said 'I need to tell you I love you, just in case anything happens. I was terrified. But when we arrived at the hospital the next morning we found him sat up in bed having demanded the tubes be removed.
“We were hoping he was going to be fine to leave when he went downhill again. His consultant dealt us the hammer blow last Tuesday that he would not be fit for his wedding. I was devastated. I thought our wedding was over.
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“But the hospital then said we could do it in the hospital chapel. Simon wasn't sure, but I told him it was just about us becoming husband and wife and not the occasion.
“We had to slice down the amount of guests and the photographer, caterers and flowers agreed to postpone till next year so we had a smaller service in the chapel.”
The couple had hoped to marry at All Saints Church in Nuneaton, Warks, before a reception for 160 guests at the Heart of England Conference and Events Centre in Warwickshire.
But they were forced to halve their guest list and move the decorations and flowers into the chapel in just three days for the big day.
Simon said: “The doctor told me that they could not let me leave the hospital and I was devastated. I felt really guilty, I felt like I was ruining Natalie's big day. When they told me we could use the chapel, I just thought we have to get married now, wherever.
“The wedding was amazing, I was in a wheelchair for most of it but I stood up to make the vows and for the first dance which was a special moment.
“We couldn't have a cake because I can't eat anything. I had celebrated my birthday when I was in intensive care and they wouldn't let me have any cake then.
“When I get out of here I can't wait to eat something hot.”
