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Weddings: Karen Frager and Lonnie Brown

Karen walked into her Uncle Keith's house one day in 1999 and found him at the kitchen table, playing cards. He introduced his opponent, Lonnie, to his niece.

Karen Frager and Lonnie Brown.
Karen Frager and Lonnie Brown.Read more

Karen Frager and Lonnie Brown
May 22, 2016, in Philadelphia

Hello there

Karen walked into her Uncle Keith's house one day in 1999 and found him at the kitchen table, playing cards. He introduced his opponent, Lonnie, to his niece.

"We started talking, and I thought he was really mature for his age," Karen said.

"She was very pretty," said Lonnie, "and had a really nice smile, which is what instantly caught my eye."

Karen and Lonnie became friends, mostly seeing each other when they hung out with Keith. Lonnie taught her to parallel park. Then both moved out of their South Philadelphia neighborhood, and they lost touch.

They next saw each other on Facebook in summer 2012. Karen reached out with condolences over the passing of Lonnie's aunt. Soon, they were talking about their lives. Karen, who was formerly a teen parent advocate with the ELECT Program, had begun studying criminal justice at Strayer University. She has two sons, Cam'ron, who is now 16, and Yassir, 14. Lonnie, who worked at Northeast Building Products, also has two sons, Lionel, 24, and Yamir, 18.

A few weeks later, they got together at a neighborhood sandwich shop and talked. It was wonderful.

"He always kept himself together, always did whatever needed to be done," Karen said. "He is so well-mannered, I never hear him get loud. And we talked about a lot of things and bounced ideas off each other."

Lonnie agrees that good conversation is the foundation of their relationship. "It just grew from there." In 2013, he moved to her place in West Philadelphia.

How does forever sound?

Lonnie, who is now 44, and Karen, now 37, were having one of their great conversations in the car on a spring day in 2014. The couple were completely on the same wavelength.

"I don't remember how he first initiated it, but I said something that he agreed with, and he said to me, 'OK, Mrs. Brown.' " Karen remembered. "He had never called me that before."

Lonnie was testing the waters.

A couple of months later, stuck in rush-hour traffic after Karen picked him at work, she said something sweet. "I"m going to marry you," Lonnie said.

"OK," she agreed.

Wedding planning began, but soon, their conversations shifted drastically.

"I was at work one day and started getting really sick," Lonnie remembered. His stomach had been acting up for a while, and he thought relaxing on his lunch break would help. It didn't. "It got to the point where I couldn't even drink liquid. I went right to the hospital."

He walked in June 14 and didn't leave until July 7. Doctors first found and removed a cancerous tumor from his stomach. "But it was worse than they originally thought," Lonnie said. "They also found it in my intestine." Diagnosis: stage-four colon cancer.

The cancer has been aggressive, Karen said, so the treatment has been also. Lonnie has had multiple surgeries and rounds of chemotherapy, and is undergoing another round now.

Karen graduated in April with a human-services degree from Orleans Technical College and is four classes shy of her bachelor's in criminal justice from Strayer. While she's finishing her classes, she has not found much time to job search because Lonnie is often too sick to care for himself.

Lonnie knows he has not always been easy to deal with. "I've often felt I was kind of young for all of this to start happening," he said. "But you know what? It's made us closer."

Karen agrees. "If we were apart, a part of me would be gone, too."

There was little time and no money for a wedding. Then Lonnie saw a television spot on the Philadelphia Chapter of Wish Upon a Wedding, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that grants weddings and vow renewals for couples facing serious illness or a life-altering circumstance. Local wedding professionals donate their products and services to make this happen. The couple applied and, in November, learned they had been chosen.

"We granted Lonnie and Karen's wedding wish because we wanted to give them and their families something joyful to look forward to. We knew that they had to postpone planning a wedding on their own after Lonnie's illness progressively worsened," said Randi Martin, president of the Wish Upon a Wedding Philadelphia Chapter. "It was our pleasure to give them a special experience."

"It was really a big shocker," Lonnie said. "Everything had been going so bad at the time - one of my chemo medicines had done some damage to my heart - so it was the best thing we heard all year when they told us."

It was so them

Karen told the nonprofit of her love for Paris, and the organization and their wedding-vendor donors took it from there.

She walked partway down the aisle at the Top of the Towers with her dad, Roger, and the rest of the way with her oldest brother, Charles. Mostly, she saw her beloved. But she was also delighted by the solid white replica of the Eiffel Tower standing behind him.

Celebrant Julie talked to the couple the week before so she could personalize the nondenominational ceremony. "She incorporated our family, announcing family members who are not here any longer or those that couldn't make it," Karen said. "She gave a shoutout to family members who helped us along the way, recently and growing up, too."

The midday reception for 50, held on a different floor of the venue, featured a lot of music and a lot of food, Lonnie said. At the couple's request, the DJ included songs that were part of their lives growing up, including "Love" by Musiq Soulchild and some classic '90s rap. Lonnie felt great that day, so, boy, did he eat: "I was eating breakfast and dinner - omelets and chicken and seafood."

"The prime rib melted in your mouth," Karen said. She filled her plate four times because, whenever she left the table to dance or take pictures, one of the venue's staff would clear her place.

The Parisian theme continued. "There was another Eiffel Tower next to the cake," Karen said, "and glass centerpieces with floating candles, and even the lace on top of the tablecloths was really French."

She crafted a signature book for their guests to sign and a matching photo album, which she has filled with photos taken from the time of their engagement through the wedding. "Looking at it," she said, "it's like you get right back into that day all over again."

Awestruck

Karen won't ever forget her walk down the aisle. "I couldn't believe everything was just so beautiful," she said. "There was the tall, white Eiffel Tower, and there was Lonnie waiting for me. When I look back, I don't believe I was in that moment. It still doesn't quite seem real, because it was so perfect."

Walking back up the aisle as husband and wife was Lonnie's favorite moment. "Hearing everybody shouting out our names and clapping, everyone who has been helping us do so much," he said, "it just broke me down."

The honeymoon

Three days in Atlantic City.

What's next

Karen's studies continue. She hopes to soon find work in her new field, preferably with a community organization.

Lonnie will soon have a series of tests to see how well the latest treatments worked and whether any tweaks must be made. With Karen's help, he tries to stay positive, despite his diagnosis. He misses his welding job. Most of all, he wants a long life with his wife and their families. "I've been trying so hard to fight this, trying to do the best I can to hold on."

The couple plan to start a GoFundMe page to help cover expenses.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Officiant: Lehigh Valley Celebrants, South Whitehall, Pa
Venue: Top of the Tower, Philadelphia
Catering: Top Of The Tower
Flowers and decor: Eventricity, Glenside
Photographer: Jenn Roberts Photography, Center Valley, Pa.
Videographer: Kathryn Burkholder Productions
Music: DJ Silver Sound Entertainment, Frazier, Pa.
Dress: David's Bridal
Planner: The Queen of Hearts Wedding Consultants, Glenside
Hair and Makeup: Bella Angel Hair & Makeup, Philadelphia
Alterations and Veil: Nilah & Company, Havertown
Cake: Desserts by Dana, Newark, Del.