Mum collapsed at my wedding .. the next day she was dead Then nan died on day of cremation

East London and works as an account manager for financial firm Bloomberg, said: “We were told it was unlikely mum would wake up, but they didn’t want to give up.

“They monitored her overnight until they were sure she was brain dead. We didn’t leave her side.”

As Jean died, Les read to her the father-of-the-bride speech he never got a chance to give at the reception.

She was declared dead on June 25, less than 24 hours after Marcia and Nick said their vows. The couple later returned to the hospital with two tiers of their untouched wedding cake to give to staff as a thank-you. On the very morning of Jean’s funeral service, July 19, the family received a letter saying her organs had saved four transplant patients.

They included a woman who had waited 13 years for a kidney and a little girl who needed a liver.

But fate had yet more heartbreak in store for Jean’s loved ones.

The next day, just as she was due to be cremated, her own mum Audrey also passed away. Marcia said: “Nan had been heartbroken when Mum died. They were really close.”

Marcia and Nick cancelled their Tanzania honeymoon and are instead training to join 20,000 others in the 10-mile Simplyhealth Great South Run in Portsmouth on October 22.

They want to help the Stroke Association, which funds research into strokes and brain haemorrhages.

Marcia added: “It is very hard knowing that whatever the future holds Mum won’t be in our lives, but she will never be forgotten.“

Sponsor Marcia at www.justgiving. com/fundraising/mama-fray. Entries for the Simplyhealth Great South Run are still open at greatrun.org