Community Comes Together to Host Wedding for Cancer Patient’s Parents

A marriage is a cause for celebration, but this particular wedding had an even more meaningful purpose.

Nine-year-old Miranda Olivera has been battling leukemia for more than a year. She wanted nothing more than to see her parents get married, and her wish was granted by a community of amazing people.

Alejandra and Saul Olivera from Seattle, Washington have been a couple for ten years and engaged for three, with a wedding date set for August 2013. In October 2012, they received devastating news that their young daughter, Miranda, had leukemia. The year they should have spent happily planning their wedding was instead spent in hospitals, with Miranda undergoing intensive cancer treatment and physical rehabilitation.

By April 2013, Miranda had relearned how to move, talk and eat on her own, and her parents and 7-year-old brother, Diego, were thrilled to bring her home. Their wedding plans resumed.

Unfortunately, just a few weeks before their special day, they discovered that Miranda's leukemia had returned, and that this time she required a bone marrow transplant.

This would be a complicated surgery, and Miranda wouldn't be able to live a normal life for some time. The couple put their wedding plans on hold again to care for their daughter, as her health was more important to them than getting married, but Miranda didn't want to wait any longer to see her parents wed. She told them it was her dream to see them get married.

Alejandra and Saul figured they would just go to the courthouse for a quick ceremony before their daughter's transplant, but the social workers at Seattle Children's Hospital, the treatment facility that had been caring for Miranda, decided to throw them a proper celebration.

Julie Arguez and other members of the pediatric advanced care team at the hospital put together a beautiful ceremony and reception in just one week's time. They received donations from friends and family, and called local businesses. In a matter of days, they were able to have the entire event taken care of; from the wedding dress, to the rings, to the cake.

Not only did Miranda get to see her parents get married, she stood by her mother's side as the Maid of Honor.

"The ceremony was amazing, and the whole day was wonderful," said Alejandra to the "Today" show. "The memory that will stay with me the most is looking at Miranda, sitting at a table, eating lunch, eating cake - no medicine, no doctors - just being a normal kid. It's incredible that so many people were willing to do something to help give us that time together as a family."

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