Hospital hosts surprise wedding to fulfill patient's last wish

When Michelle Avila and Antonio Moreno went to get their marriage license, they knew they wanted their parents to attend their nuptials.

Avila told "Good Morning America", however, there was one major concern for her and Moreno: Avila's father, Jose Antonio Avila, had been admitted on Feb. 22 to UMC Health System in Lubbock, Texas, with norovirus and then developed complications, including interstitial lung disease.

"We knew he was about to start this new medication that was kind of 50-50, and so I just asked her, 'Why wait?'" Moreno explained.

Avila said she had a similar idea too and knew her father's final wish was to see her get married.

"He just looked at me [and asked], 'Do you think we should get married at the hospital with Dad there?' and I said, 'I was thinking it the day before. I just didn't want to feel like I was pressuring him,'" Avila recalled.

Soon, the couple started asking hospital staffers how they could make it all happen. Word eventually reached Sheena Helm, a UMC Health charge nurse in the medical intensive care unit, who was just getting off her shift on March 7 when she learned of the request.

"I emailed our CEO of UMC [Health System], Mark Funderburk, and within 15 minutes, he replied back to me in a huge group chain email with people in the administration I've never even heard of," Helm told "GMA." "And throughout that night -- I didn't get much sleep -- I received multiple, multiple emails, so I'm assuming administration didn't get much sleep either, and by the next day, 2 p.m., we had a full blown wedding."

Little did the couple know, what they envisioned as a small hospital bedside ceremony would turn into more than they ever could have imagined: a full ceremony on March 8, with decorations lining the medical intensive care unit hallways, dozens of artificial sunflowers and red roses, and a whole team of volunteer wedding organizers.

Helm said she and other staffers at UMC, including nurses, social workers and nutritionists, all teamed up to pull off the wedding. Eventfully Yours, a local wedding and event planning business, also donated their services and decorations, and others, including a UMC photographer and a secretary's brother-in-law who played the guitar and sang, all pitched in to make the wedding an unforgettable event.

"I didn't just feel like a charge nurse that day, I [felt] like a wedding planner," Helm said. "It just kind of all worked out. Everything just kind of fell into place."

"We thought it was just gonna be, like, a small thing, and that turned into this whole thing. And I thought, it's bittersweet and it was perfect, regardless of what happened," Moreno said.

Avila said it meant "the world" to have her father, who "loved life" and was "full of joy," there to witness their wedding, five days before his death at 65.

"You could just see it in his eyes. He was joyful. He kept thanking everyone for that moment and … even the next morning, before his health took a turn, he kept thanking the doctors and the nurses, just [saying] how grateful he was to have that moment with family," she said.

Afterward, Avila said she was able to spend time with her dad and said he told her he couldn't have been more grateful.

"He was just like, 'I feel God answered every wish that I could ask for -- and for that, I'm eternally grateful for everyone, every single person on that day,'" Avila said.

"It was just blessing after blessing after blessing, and it was very honestly something like out of a movie," she added.