You might want to hold onto your heartstrings — one bride just gave a whole new meaning to the wedding tradition, "something blue."
Alison Ferrel married her husband, Matthew, on May 13, 2017 surrounded by family and friends — but one guest in attendance stood out more than the rest. Ferrel's 92-year-old uncle, Bill Lee Eblen, a former sergeant in the United States Marine Corps during World War II, was escorted down the aisle, dashing in his Dress Blues.
"Once I got engaged, I knew I wanted to include my Uncle Bill, or as social media now calls him, 'Uncle Blue,' in a special way," Ferrel told Babble. "Coming from a close-knit family where I was taught to have respect and admiration for those in the armed services, this felt like a natural choice, to have Uncle Bill there in his dress blues."
For Uncle Bill, however, making it to Ferrel's wedding was anything but easy. Last fall, a severe bout of pneumonia put Eblen in extended-stay rehab. His illness, though, made something clear to Ferrel — she wanted and needed her uncle to be a part of her wedding ceremony. She asked him to be her "something blue" while he fought the pneumonia in the hospital.
It was his niece's request that pulled him through his illness. "What's your goal?" a nurse asked him in his hospital bed. "To be her 'something blue' on her wedding day," he answered.
The brave marine pulled through and met his goal with flying colors — well, blue colors, that is. Photos of the bride and her beloved uncle, which Ferrel shared with the Facebook page Love What Matters, reveal how much this meant to both of them. "It was such an honor to have him serve as my 'something blue' on my wedding day [for] a memory that will last a lifetime," Ferrel wrote.
Thousands of comments were left on the photos, with nearly everyone saying how special this idea truly was. "This gave me goosebumps and teary eyes," one woman wrote. "You are a beautiful bride. What a wonderful moment. Thank him for his service," another said.
Now excuse us, we have something in our eyes ...
[h/t Babble]
