Expectant parents Leslie Beattie and Dennis DeGeorge had planned to marry in a surprise ceremony during a backyard barbeque for family and friends at their Mar Vista home on April 24. Then fate intervened.
Beattie, who’s expecting twins, began pre-term labor and was admitted to Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital for monitored bedrest. The wedding appeared to be off.
But Beattie and DeGeorge had their April 24 wedding after all, thanks to plan B – a wedding in the hospital’s chapel. Beattie and DeGeorge exchanged vows in a brief ceremony in front of family, friends and hospital staff after being wheeled to the chapel on a gurney. She was wheeled back to her room in the Antepartum Unit for high-risk pregnancies following the ceremony.
Beattie wore a maternity dress that served as her wedding gown and her brother, Elliott Beattie, and sister, Betsy Kortebein, flew in from Detroit and Little Rock, Ark., respectively, to walk her down the aisle and serve as her maid of honor. Beattie joked that her wedding party’s colors were navy blue – the color of scrubs worn by her nurses!
About 25-30 guests attended the ceremony. “We counted the number of chairs in the chapel and that seemed like the most it could hold,” she quipped. Among the guests was her obstetrician, Dr. Khalil Tabsh, who ordered more bedrest for Beattie immediately after the ceremony.
“It’s not the picture I would have painted for my wedding day,” said Beattie, a freelance prop master who was working on the “Hannah Montana” television show prior to her hospitalization. “But I still feel like I’m the luckiest woman in the world.”
Beattie is expected to remain in the hospital for the rest of her pregnancy. Her due date is July 26.
