Highwic house wedding photos

Photographed by Amber + Zahn

For such a young couple, Jess and Troy have been through more than a lifetime’s worth of hard times. Jess has a special heart that has meant many, many surgeries and scary times for her and her family. When we heard Jess and Troy were planning a wedding with a small budget and just 3 months to go – we knew we wanted to help them out. So ourselves – and a whole bunch of wonderful people in the wedding industry pulled together to gift our time and services to Jess and Troy.

Make sure you check out the ‘vendor shoutout’ list at the bottom of this page – it’s a good one!

Here are Jess’ words that will tell their story better than I ever could.

“I was born with 6 heart conditions. I’m now age 23. I had  3 open heart surgeries by the time I was 6, one of the surgeries called the Fontans being one of the most complicated triple bypass surgeries to date. In 2012 I had another heart surgery at age 18, which failed and lead me to have pace maker surgery. From then on I have been permanent pace maker dependent as my heart can no longer beat for itself. I then had lung complications which lead me to have emergency lung surgery where they fused my lung to my chest wall. I was in hospital for a total of 3 months before I as let home. However, just after my 19 birthday my heart stopped and I went into heart failure. At this point I was on my death bed once again with my heart functioning at only 5%. Some how, I don’t know how, but I pulled through and recovered well for the next 3 years until i got hit with the flu in July 2015. At that time my heart function was stronger, sitting around 25%. Since I got the flu my heart was deteriorating and 6 months later my heart was at 15% and i had another heart surgery and also pace maker surgery may 2016.

To top it all off – at the start of may 2016 I also found out I had liver disease and the only way I could fix it was to have a liver transplant, but because of how weak my heart is that wasn’t possible unless I had a double organ transplant (heart and liver). This double organ transplant is extremely risky, but without it I only have a couple years to live as each month my heart function and oxygen levels deteriorate hence why I’ve take this big risk. I will be the first congenital heart defect patient in NZ to have a double organ transplant”.

If you would like to follow more of Jess’s story – you can check out her Facebook Page here:
https://www.facebook.com/jessicastransplantjourney/

Vendor Shoutout:
The people in this list gifted their time and services either for free or at an extreme discount for Jess and Troy.
It’s just incredible to see our community come together for such a deserving and lovely family – Thank you all!!
Photography: Zahn from Perry Trotter Photography and Amber from Perspectives Photo + Cinema
Videography: Ylia Trotter Photo & Cinema
Venue: Highwic House
Makeup: Hayley Amunsden from All Made Up
Hair Stylist: Sara from Sara Joy Hair Design
DJ: Nick Logan
Celebrant: Sarah Bloxham
Cake: Mariska MacShoeman
Marquee – Let’s Celebrate Party Hire