Tragedy as woman planning for her wedding ends up planning for her boyfriend’s funeral

Liverpool: A woman who entered a competition to win a dream wedding had to withdraw her entry after her fiancé sadly lost his life.

The love of Caroline Waine's life, Stuart Murphy lost his battle with cancer on March 12, only 14 months after the couple met and fell in love, the Liverpool Echo reports.

“Stuart was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma just four months after we met,” says Caroline.

“But it’s like I was there to help him through it - and I am so proud and privileged to have been able to do that.

“I would have liked to have longer with Stuart, but I would rather have had that short time with him than to never have been with him at all.”

Caroline and Stuart entered the Echo’s Win A Wedding competition amid hopes of beating the illness and cementing their love with a dream wedding.

But Caroline was forced to withdraw her entry after Stuart sadly lost his life.

She contacted the Echo to say: “Thanks so much for entering my partner and I in the Echo to win a dream wedding, but unfortunately, and with great sadness, I will have to withdraw from the competition as Stuart passed away... He lost his battle with cancer at the age of 31.

“It was our dream to get married but there wasn’t enough time. I was at his bedside holding his hand so he wasn’t alone.”

And she signed it ‘His broken hearted fiancee’.

Theirs was a love and a relationship that was clearly meant to be, if not to last.

Caroline had known of Stuart 13 years ago because he worked with her sister, Vicky, but it was only at the beginning of last year that the couple actually met.

Caroline, 34, from Woolton , explains: “I met him on a dating website.

“Stuart invited me over to his home in Rainhill and offered to cook a meal for me. I wouldn’t have done that normally but I asked Vicky if she knew him and when she told me he was nice, I said yes.

“We got on really well; he was such a nice, genuine, caring fella, lovely and funny... and he was fit!” she smiles.

“I had two weeks off work and so we spent a lot of time together and got to know one another really quickly. It’s like it was meant to be.”

Life was looking good until April last year when Stuart developed a lump in his neck.

“He joked that he could be allergic to chocolate as it was Easter,” says Caroline, who works in pharmacy and IT at the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital.

But as the lump swelled and he began to have other symptoms, Stuart knew he had to seek medical advice.

It was at Whiston Hospital Stuart discovered that there were lumps in his chest too, and a biopsy revealed the cancer.

“I stayed with him throughout the day of his biopsy, passing him water and whatever he needed, I didn’t want to leave him. He said it was that day he realised I was ‘the one’.”

From May to October last year, Stuart, whose parents Stephen and Sharron flew back from their home in Spain, to help look after him with Caroline, underwent a variety of chemotherapy treatments.

He suffered mouth infections as a result of it which left him unable to eat and speak, and he was in great pain. Caroline spent her days at work and her nights at hospital with Stuart.