Lockdown groom gets new heart transplant

A couple who tied the knot in a hospital ceremony during lockdown plan to renew their vows – after the groom received a life saving heart transplant.

Stevie Cairns, 49, married Katie, 51, at the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire on 18 May, as he waited for a new heart.

Katie stood by her new husband’s bed in her wedding dress as a humanist celebrant conducted the ceremony.

All three wore personal protective equipment (PPE), including face masks and visors, to help stop the potential spread of Covid-19. But on 5 August, after an agonising seven-month wait for a transplant in hospital, Stevie has now received a new heart – after keeping the major surgery a secret from Katie.

After three previous failed attempts to find him a new heart, Stevie, a business analyst, didn’t want to dash his new wife’s hopes if the transplant fell through.

But now the happy couple, from Bonnyrigg, Midlothian, are set to renew their vows at Celtic Park when die hard Hoops fan Stevie is discharged, and hope to be joined by family and friends.