Dad With Stage 4 Cancer Thinks He’s Attending a Family Photo Shoot—Until he Sees His Daughter in a White Dress
As the sun was setting on Fishing Creek Floral Farm in Pennsylvania, 75-year-old Navy veteran, Paul Hulse—who was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer—joined his family of 20 for a special photo shoot.
While Hulse was getting photos taken with other family members, his 41-year-old daughter, Megan Knorr, snuck up from behind.
Adorned in a white silk dress, she tapped his shoulder and asked him if he was ready for a wedding.
Through tears, he replied: "I've been ready for a long time."
"Are you ready to have a wedding today?" 29-year-old photographer, Bridgette Lynn persisted.
"Right now?" he asked, bewildered.
"Yeah, right now," Megan said.
"I think it just was shocking at first, and then it sunk in. ... It was a very special moment," Megan told the Epoch Times.
"I personally had no idea [about the wedding]," a speechless Hulse said. "I knew about the photo shoot obviously, but the wedding was a wonderful surprise for me."
After the initial shock and tears, Hulse was "thrilled" that Megan and Jeffery Knorr were finally tying the knot after being together for 12 years.
After receiving the shocking diagnosis, he and his family were left devastated.
Wanting to create treasured memories with him, Megan and her sister, Mandy Dinino, 36, decided to organize a special family shoot for their father. At the time, a heartbroken Megan expressed her wish to tie the knot and have her father walk her down the aisle.
Deciding to combine both of these ideas, the sisters set out to organize a spontaneous wedding while keeping it a secret from their father.
"It was very chaotic to try to organize, but we managed to make it work," said Megan, who applied for a marriage license with Jeffery on Aug. 28.
On Sept. 5, Dinino, a stay-at-home mom, shared the family's plight on a local Facebook group along with a request for help to find a photographer to shoot the wedding at a reduced cost.
An hour later, Lynn—an electronic health records analyst who also owns Studio at 122 Photography, LLC—caught wind of the post and felt a tug at her heartstrings, as, like Hulse, she's an army veteran herself. Lynn responded to Dinino and agreed to shoot the wedding free of charge.
"She was fully on board with throwing in the surprise wedding," Dinino said, adding that she also suggested hosting the event at her cousin's daughter's floral farm.
As the days ticked by, the compassion of ordinary Pennsylvanians shone brightly.
Three days before the wedding, Megan walked into an upscale, appointment-only dress shop, Exclusively You, and shared the plan for the surprise wedding with the owner.
"They just took me right in, brought me all kinds of dresses, and just made me feel so special," Megan, who is self-employed, said. "They ended up giving me a dress that was supposed to be $1,200 for $500, just out of the kindness of their hearts."
Luckily, the dress needed no alteration and fit like a glove.
But it wasn't just the owner of the bridal store that showed her compassion. Craig Long, the district magistrate who officiated the wedding, cut short his birthday plans on hearing about the family's big surprise.
As the day finally arrived, it was a truly special moment for the family.
"The weather wasn't too hot or too cold, and the sun was just setting perfectly," Lynn, who partnered with Willow Springs Photography to shoot the wedding, said.
Included in the photo shoot was a picture of the late Jeralee Ann Vrobst, Hulse's granddaughter who passed away from leukemia in August of 2022. The family honors Jeralee at all their family events.
For Lynn, shooting the surprise wedding was an honor.
"In my 10 years of doing photography, I've never once cried in a session," she said. "Seeing it play out in the moment, I just teared up, and I was like 'Oh, I need some tissues.'"
Although it has been hard for her to stay in touch with him, she has tried her best and is always there whenever he needs her.
And as for Dinino?
"I'm the baby, and my siblings always give me a hard time that I'm Dad's favorite," she said. "But parents don't pick favorites."
Originally from Hainesport, New Jersey, Hulse now resides in Danville, Pennsylvania, just 15 minutes from both his daughters in Bloomsburg. Since his cancer diagnosis, he has stopped working as a modular home escort driver—a job he's worked at for the last 40 years.
With doctors giving him only 4 to 6 months to live, he's holding strongly to his faith in his battle with cancer, has made a drastic change to his diet, and is seeing a holistic provider for his treatment.
"I'm going to heal myself with food, with what God provides," Hulse said.
Additional Reporting by Daksha Devnani
