When Ellen Haynes was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer she had one fear: that she wouldn’t be well enough to dance with her granddaughter, Brittany Marr, on her wedding day.
But Ellen got her wish, along with some stunning photos, when a photographer agreed to host a pre-wedding shoot with the two of them.
On the day, Brittany, from Michigan, gave her grandmother an emotional “first look” at her wedding dress and the two danced together to ‘I’m Gonna Love You Through It’ by Martina McBride.
They also read out letters to one another, before Ellen gave Brittany her beloved necklace.
The photos were captured by Oklahoma-based photographer Mikayla Miller, who posted a competition on her Facebook page ‘Copper + Pine’ earlier this year offering a free shoot.
Brittany applied for the session, writing to Mikayla explaining her grandmother’s breast cancer was affecting the bones in her back and had spread to her arm.
“I’d like to capture through pictures the love I have for her, the love she gives me, and life is too special and short when you have special people in your life to take that time with them for granted,” Brittany wrote.
For Mikayla, choosing the pair for the shoot was a no-brainer and she said the session itself was “the most emotional shoot that [she has] shot to date.”
“I can’t even remember how many times I could hardly see through the viewfinder on my camera because of the tears that had welled up in my eyes,” she told HuffPost UK.
“The best thing, though, was that the whole session wasn’t filled with tears and sadness. We spent just as much, if not more, time laughing and smiling together, which was beautiful.”
Mikayla explained that at one point, she asked the two women to look at each other and say what their favourite memory with the other was.
“Brittany’s grandma, Ellen, looked at her and said ‘probably this’,” Mikayla said.
“It was the best, most rewarding shoot I’ve ever done, simply because the two are the sweetest human beings and are so, so, so deserving of what I have been able to give them and more.”
Check out some of the photos from the shoot below or visit the Copper + Pine website to see more of Mikayla Mille’s work.
