A wedding celebrated far from restaurants and reception halls, in a room of the Emergency Department at Rimini’s Infermi Hospital. It was here, on the morning of Friday, August 14, that a couple from Rimini exchanged their vows, after the man’s health suddenly worsened due to a serious illness.
Italian law allows marriages to be celebrated in hospital when there is an imminent danger to life, without the usual publication of banns, in the presence of witnesses and a civil registrar.
The ceremony took place in a room of the Obi (Short Stay Observation Unit), attended by the four witnesses chosen by the couple, several family members, registry officials from the municipality, and Tiziana Perin, director of Rimini’s Emergency Department and Emergency Medicine unit.
To make the moment as special as possible, hospital staff also did their part. The room was arranged to give the couple a measure of privacy and decorated with blue bows fashioned from work aprons.
“It was a moment of pure emotion,” recounts Dr. Tiziana Perin. “We were all deeply moved to see how much love bound these two people together, as if with that ‘I do’ — a kind of eternal vow — they had somehow stopped time and defeated the illness.”
“We did everything we could to make it as perfect as possible, even during a period of intense workload, striving to give them a bit of intimacy in that room, decorated with blue bows made from work aprons. It was an honor for me and for the Emergency Department staff to help, in our own small way, fulfill their great wish.”
