A mum with months to live felt like a “princess” after her community rallied together to throw her the perfect wedding. <br /><br />Emma Rice, 32, married childhood sweetheart Dava Rice, 34, on April 29, 2023, after local businesses donated the venue, cake, cars, DJ, and photographer for free.<br /><br />The wedding day was organised just months after Emma was diagnosed with stage four terminal ovarian cancer in January 2023.<br /><br />Her symptoms began in February 2021, when she started experiencing heavy bleeding from her vagina and discomfort.<br /><br />Medics thought her contraceptive coil had become dislodged but further <br />examinations of her cervix revealed the ''devastating truth''. <br /><br />Despite undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the cancer spread, and Emma was told she had around a year to live. <br /><br />Emma's best friend, Louise Bell, 29, a teaching assistant, helped organise "the perfect wedding day" with the help of family and friends.<br /><br />Emma has since gone into St John's Hospice, at Clatterbridge Hospital, Wirral, where she is regularly visited by husband Dava and their three kids David Jn, 11, Keeley-Mae, 10, and six-year-old Ariela.<br /><br />Newly married Dava, a warehouse operator, from Birkenhead, the Wirral, said: “It was the best time of my life. <br /><br />"My heart hasn't moved past that day - I'm still living it now.<br /><br />"She finally got the day she deserved.<br /><br />"We couldn't have done it all with Louise's help - she was incredible and we're so grateful.” <br /><br />Emma, who used to manage the Claughton Village Sunbed Shop, added: "The wedding day lived up to my expectations and went beyond what I thought was possible.<br /><br />"I felt like a princess on the day."<br /><br />Emma and Dava first met as teens through friends, when she was 16 and he was 17, and have been together ever since. <br /><br />The mum-of-three visited the GP with symptoms in February 2021, who told her the pain was due to her contraceptive coil becoming 'misaligned' and 'lacerating' her womb.<br /><br />But the pain intensified, so Emma sought advice from a specialist.<br /><br />Dava said: "The GP was convinced it was the coil. <br /><br />"They said, 'you're too young for it to be anything else.'<br /><br />"But she was so anaemic, she was passing out from blood loss and the pain.<br /><br />"The moment the specialist looked at her cervix, she said she had never seen one that looked like that that wasn't cancer."<br /><br />Emma was diagnosed with stage three cervical cancer in February 2022 and referred to Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, Liverpool, for treatment.<br /><br />She experienced acute kidney damage after her first dose of chemotherapy, so she went straight into five weeks of radiotherapy, which finished in October 2021.<br /><br />The couple were hopeful when Emma went for a PET scan in January 2023, but their world was ''shattered'' when they heard the results. <br /><br />Dava said: "The cancer had spread. <br /><br />"We asked how long she had, and they said about a year - our whole world came crashing down.<br /><br />"Every day feels like it's going too fast when you've got a deadline.
