Mom has Alzheimer’s, so couple plans wedding in 25 days

Here’s your daily dose of bittersweetness courtesy of KARE 11.

Stephanie Gefroh’s mom doesn’t recognize her anymore. She has Alzheimer’s. She’s only 58.

She’s lost the ability to speak and write.

“I love her. She’s my mom. She’s still my mom. She’s in there somewhere,”
she tells KARE.

She only got engaged to Bryan Fish recently and weddings take time to plan.

But Bryan was all-in when Stephanie’s sister suggested that if she wanted her mom at her wedding, the Plymouth couple better do it now, and better do it in Devil’s Lake, N.D.

“I mean, I love that woman,” Bryan says. “So if she wants to move it up a year, move it up a year. If she wants to do it in her mom’s backyard, I totally understand.”

And if all the planning has to be done in 25 days, then all the planning has to be done in 25 days.

When they married, their friends drove to North Dakota.

“She might not remember a lot, but she knows love,” said Mary Senger, Steph’s aunt, of her sister’s reaction during the ceremony. “When she sees love and she feels love, she knows love.”

Two weeks after the ceremony, Stephanie’s mom was moved to a memory care center.