4-Year-Old Wears Wedding Dress in Honor of Mother's Memory
Nora also donned her mom's bouquet and rings after she died of cancer.
— -- A little girl has honored her deceased mother in a special way, by wearing her wedding gown in a stunning photo shoot.
Nora Davis, 4, daughter of Amber Davis, donned her mom's dress, bouquet and rings on Oct. 25, one year after she died of cancer.
"Nora was on Cloud 9," said Davis' sister, Adrianne Blackwelder of Statesville, North Carolina. "I think that's something [Amber] wanted. Something Nora could enjoy, but a memory that she'll have forever."
Amber Davis, 28, died on July 28, 2015, after a year-long fight with aggressive cervical cancer.
Blackwelder described her sister as a compassionate person who put others before herself.
"She was the first one to stand up and protect you," Blackwelder told ABC News. "That was the type of person she was, the type of mother she was. She had the most beautiful laugh, very happy and very funny. She was like the mother to model after. She was calm and even when things were crazy, Amber kept it together.
"Even when she was going through awful pain, all she could do was encourage others," she added. "It's so easy to get caught up in things that don't matter, but she was the mom that knew very much of what's important. It blew my mind because where we would crawl up in bed and be depressed, she was up and full of life."
Davis was mom to three children -- Noah, 8, Nora, 4 and Reid, 3.
After she was diagnosed, she came up with the idea to have her daughter Nora take pictures while wearing her wedding dress, according to her friend and owner of My Three Arrows photography, Heidi Spillane.
"I said, 'Let's plan a date to get it done,'" Spillane recalled. "But after that, she kind of took a turn for the worse. She was all about spending time with family, so we never got around to scheduling everything. I think she just had that vision of Nora having that special moment to be connected to her mom, by wearing her dress."
On Oct. 25, Spillane and Davis' family set up a photo shoot where Nora wore her mother's gown -- the same dress she wore when she married in February 2011. Nora even had her hair done by her mother's stylist. Her father, Derek Davis, also participated in the heartwarming photo session, Blackwelder said.
"I thought it was going to be emotional, but it was just a happy time," Blackwelder added. "We talked about Amber ... the day of their wedding."
Blackwelder wanted to honor Amber's request, which was, "'Make sure my kids remember me.'"
"That mother-daughter bond, there is nothing else like it," Blackwelder added. "I think Amber wanted something special for her. Nora enjoyed her day of being a little princess."
