Why these Bluffton newlyweds fighting cancer got hitched in a swing and not on the beach

The white front-porch swing at his future mother-in-law’s house was a backup plan, almost the last resort for the wedding.

A few weeks ago, John Barlow rested in bed while his then-fiance called to cancel the reservation for the Hilton Head Island beach house they’d picked for the occasion.

She made that call just a month before they were to exchange vows on April 1.

She did so at John’s request.

“ ‘You’re not dealing with John anymore,’ ” Krista Barlow said Thursday, her blue eyes watering under her auburn hair as she recalled her husband’s words that day.

“ ‘I’m sick,’ ” he’d said. “ ‘You need to take control.’ ”

Before making the call, she stormed out of the hospital and phoned her mother.

“It’s hard to cancel your own wedding,” Krista told her.

Krista cried.

She made the cancellation.

She went back into the hospital room and hugged John.

She cried some more.

Over the next few days the couple canceled the caterer and the photographer.

They later considered a ceremony at Bluffton Oyster Company. They started to plan a service at Cornerstone Church. At one point, Krista thought they might have a bedside wedding, since John might need to keep resting.

But they kept their date and ended up getting hitched on her mother’s porch; it was a sit-down, casual affair in the swing. Love made it happen — their own, and that of the community.

There were surprises, a lot of last-minute scrambling.

And maybe that’s typical for a lot of weddings, but it was more complicated for the Barlows.

They were determined to get married, despite the cancer spreading through John’s body.

He’d been diagnosed with Stage Four gastrointenstinal cancer on Valentine’s Day. He spent about three weeks at Medical University of South Carolina Hospital in Charleston before returning home to Bluffton. At 43, he almost died.

Krista had stayed with him the entire time, sleeping on a small couch in the hospital room. She sometimes laid her head on his chest, and she could tell he was struggling. She knew the sound of his breathing — they’d been together almost five years before getting engaged in December.

She was a bartender at Old Town Dispensary when they met, and a few months after he asked her out, Krista knew they’d get married.

John didn’t.

He once told his future mother-in-law, Joan Solley, he’d never marry her daughter. It wasn’t a mean statement, just a matter of fact.

But years later he’d sit on Solley’s porch, on a swing decorated with flower arrangements she’d made, his bride holding a bouquet Solley designed.

The bouquet — white roses, yellow calla lilies and some orchids — rested on a table in Solley’s living room Thursday as she talked about her son-in-law, who rested in a nearby bedroom.

John had asked her permission to marry her daughter, she said, and he’d made a surprise trip to North Carolina to ask Krista’s father. The groom-to-be had saved his money for two years to the buy an engagement ring.

“John’s a planner,” Krista said.

He planned to ask for her hand on December 10, on a boat in the May River. The river, he knew, was Krista’s favorite spot. John made coffee drinks sweetened with Bailey’s Irish Cream.

But the surprise was almost spoiled by Krista’s brother, who learned of the boat ride — he and his girlfriend wanted to come along.

Krista wanted them to.

So John called his future mother-in-law, who quickly concocted a diversion.

Solley now shares her Bluffton Park home with Krista and John.

Cancer is expensive, costly in so many ways.

Solley, who worked with wedding planners for 15 years, said she’d never seen vendors refund money — let alone offer full reimbursements — on such short notice like they did for John and Krista.

And Krista, who’s lived in the area for 20-plus years and spent much of that time in the food and beverage industry, was surprised to discover her workplace, The Roasting Room, had organized a charity event for her and John.

“Jam for John,” she said, referring to the name of the event.

She gestured to a flyer larger than a legal pad, which sported the names of 55 local businesses that made some type of donation to what ended up being a raffle- and silent-auction-type shindig. Local bands played for free. Krista’s coworkers came up with the idea because they thought the wedding was canceled.

The fundraiser was slotted for April 1.

Krista stumbled on the event on her employer’s website a couple of weeks before the wedding. She called her co-workers and told them the ceremony was still on, and started working with them to plan the fundraiser.

The Roasting Room would end up hosting the reception, which would spill over into the fundraiser.

Just days before the wedding, Krista was emailing friends and family to let them know it was still on, but that she didn’t know where it would be held.

She was still planning on Cornerstone Church, but she knew John might not feel up to it. Her mother’s front porch was Plan B.

On the big day, John’s friends — rugby players — stood on the church steps and directed guests to the Roasting Room.

Inside was a projector, which the Barlows’ friend, Erin Emerick, had rented from a company in Savannah. The front-porch wedding would be broadcast live. Another last-minute surprise.

“We didn’t know if it was going to work,” Emerick, who came up with the idea, said. She was a bridesmaid, and before assuming her position, handed her phone to a friend. “ ‘Oh by the way, hold the phone horizontally, and don’t cover the (microphone),’ ” she told her friend.

It worked.

The broadcast had a lot of empty air time at the beginning.

John sat on his mother-in-law’s swing — which he’d hung for her years earlier — waiting for his bride.

He was surprised to see her step onto the porch in a full wedding gown — he thought she would wear a white sundress. But Krista had slipped inside for a quick change ... that turned out to take longer than expected when she and her sister struggled to fasten the intricate buttons on the back of the gown.

“ ‘Wow,’ ” Krista remembers John saying.

They got married.

Then, they went to the reception.

John only stayed 30 minutes or so, but the couple got a standing ovation when they pulled up to the Roasting Room in a golf cart.

“He seemed to get a little more strength back,” Emerick said.

But it didn’t last long.

The couple traveled to Charleston the following day for more tests. They stayed at a hotel near MUSC. John was too sick for treatment, so doctors pumped him full of fluids to rehydrate him and anti-nausea medicine.

He rebounded a couple days later.

“That (day) was a gift,” Krista said.

They spent it by the pool, in the sun.

They listened to music.

They ate prime rib.

It became their honeymoon.

As they talked by the pool, John told Krista he was glad they got married, but that he wished he’d been able to do more at the wedding — like tell stories about his best man.

“He had in his mind the vision he wanted, and he was unable to do it,” Krista said, remembering the conversation.

But in the next breath, she remembers, he said: “Well, our next party is going to be huge.”

He’s planning on it.

Doctors say his age, faith and attitude work in his favor — the goal is to get healthy enough for more biopsies so they can better target the source of the tumors.

He’s scheduled for more chemotherapy this week.

The couple is treating the cancer aggressively.

And they’re talking about the future.

Which they are planning to spend together.

This story was originally published April 7, 2017 at 11:54 AM with the headline "Why these Bluffton newlyweds fighting cancer got hitched in a swing and not on the beach."