Daughter gets married next to dying father in hospital

As Kaila Kirby’s father grows increasingly ill with each passing day, it became clear that he might not be able to walk his daughter down the aisle next year at her wedding.

Earlier this week, Kaila married her fiance by her father’s bedside in the intensive care unit at Carolinas Medical Center in North Carolina. She wanted her father to give her away, Charlotte Observer reports.

“It was important to have my dad here,” Kaila said. “I would have liked for him to stand beside me. I feel like I’m losing my best friend.”

The 49-year-old father, Jubal Kirby, is suffering from Pulmonary Fibrosis, an incurable lung disease and has been hospitalized for nearly three weeks, according Fox Carolina.

The couple decided to move their wedding date up and made last-minute plans to make it happen with the help from family, friends and even the nurses.

Her father’s nurse along with the other hospital staff bought balloons and cake for the wedding while Kaila’s sister went to Target to buy a veil and bouquet for the bride, Fox Carolina reports.

As her father laid wearing a ventilator to breathe nearby, the couple exchanged vows and kissed.

“I wanted to do this for Kaila,“ Pastor Rex Burelson told New York Daily News. "She may not have gotten everything she imagined on her wedding day but she got the most important part— to spend it with her dad.”