Her $50,000 “dream day” turned into a medical nightmare.
The trauma of wedding planning left bride Kelly Stech paralyzed and unable to crack a smile while walking down the aisle.
“I felt like it was the happiest day of my life, but I didn’t want people to think I looked miserable because I couldn’t smile on my wedding day,” Stech, 30, a hairdresser from Chicago, explained to Kennedy News. “It’s hard to believe this happened.”
She was ultimately diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt syndrome. It’s a rare neurological condition in which shingles affects one’s facial nerve, causing both weakness on one side of the face and hearing problems. Justin Bieber announced that he’d been stricken with the disorder in June 2022.
But doctors blamed Stech’s sudden distress on holy matrimony duress.
“My wedding stress definitely caused this,” confirmed the millennial, who, despite the hitch in her health, got hitched to hubby, Benjamin, in early October 2023. “The financial stress of it definitely takes a toll.”
A newlywed’s well-being is a high price to pay in exchange for the perfect big day.
Still, a staggering 96% of fiancés experience wedding planning stress, according to a recent survey via Zola, an online nuptials hub. Forty percent of the couples polled consider the prepping process “extremely stressful,” owing to organizational snafus, guest list hiccups and, of course, the crippling costs that come with saying “I Do.”
Sweethearts poised to tie the knot in the US can expect to fork over approximately $26,665 on a swanky celebration. From the venue to the food, the decor to the DJ, weddings can easily break the bank — as well as the person’s sanity.
Megan Finn, 27, a mom of two and recent bride, from Belfast, Ireland, went into psychosis and began hallucinating due to wedding planning stress.
Stech, although she didn’t start seeing things that weren’t there, started noticing changes in her body days prior to taking the plunge.
“Exactly a week before the wedding, I was starting to feel under the weather. The following day, at work I felt like I had an ear infection coming on,” she recalled. “It hurt to swallow and I felt a popping sensation in my ear.”
The then bride-to-be went to urgent care for treatment, but was told her ear looked “completely fine,” baring no signs of an infection.
Unfortunately, she was not completely fine.
“I woke up that Monday and my ear was completely swollen and blistered. I went back to urgent care and they put me on a steroid and antibiotic for cellulitis,” said Stech. “I woke up the next day and the pain was worse.”
“I was vomiting non-stop, I couldn’t keep anything down.”
It was suffering like she’d never endured.
“My whole body felt like it had been hit by a truck,” Stech groaned. “Then I was laying on the couch later on and making silly faces on Snapchat and couldn’t feel the right side of my face moving.”
“[The next day] when I went to smile, the right side of my face just wouldn’t move like the left side would,” she added. “My ear had blisters on them. I was full blown panicking and crying. The pressure on my ear felt like it was going to explode.”
On the night of her rehearsal dinner, the beleaguered belle returned to urgent care, then immediately transferred to a hospital for more specialized support. Rather than enjoying a pre-wedding meal with friends and family, Stech was under intense medical supervision.
Physician initially believed she’d had an allergic reaction to an IV antibiotic that had caused Bell’s Palsy — a temporary weakness of one side of the face.
But even with the prognosis, Stech refused to cancel or postpone her ring-swap ceremony. Instead, she simply chopped the guest list down from 200 to 50 loved ones, and carried on without hesitation — nor the ability to grin.
“I barely slept the whole night. There was barely any movement in my mouth,” she remembered. “I could smile without teeth but if I tried to smile with teeth, it was definitely crooked.”
“I wanted to go ahead with the wedding either way.”
With the help of a skillful makeup artist, and the gal pals in her bridal party, Stech managed to conceal her paralysis for most of the day.
Tragically, half-way through the festivities, her right eyelid “just stopped working.”
“I couldn’t go around taking photos anymore, my eyelid was paralysed, I couldn’t blink,” she said. “I was holding a handkerchief up to my eye to keep it shut. Everybody kept saying ‘Sorry you’re going through this.’”
“I couldn’t drink any alcohol,” continued the hapless honoree. “I was in so much pain and so tired.”
Days after her frightful fête, Stech learned she had Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which can be treated with antiviral medications and pain relievers, per Cleveland Clinic.
Stech, now eight months pregnant, has since regained all the movement in her face.
And she’s urging brides against letting wedding planning stress get the best of them.
“We got to experience first-hand early on what ‘in sickness and health’ actually meant,” the mommy-to-be said of the early onset chaos she and Benjamin’s suffered.
“I tell friends stressed about wedding planning, be grateful you’re in this position and don’t let it stress you out, you don’t want to end up paralysed on your wedding day,” she said. “Don’t stress about your shoes or the weather.”
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