iPad Saves Wedding

Bride Dana waves to Dad Arie in the hospital

Two days before 25-year-old Dana Levit was going to marry the love of her life for 10 years, her father had a heart attack at his kitchen table and was rushed to the hospital.

At the time Dana knew nothing about it.

Dad Arie, 61, was fine but doctors at York Central Hospital where he was admitted told him he wasn’t able to attend the wedding. Mila, Arie’s wife of 34-years, watched her husband crumble and cry more than she’d ever witnessed before.

Dana’s fiancé, Darren Abenstein, was burdened with the task of telling his love her beloved father wouldn’t be there on her big day.

Already irritated by last minute wedding details like flowers and weather, the news of her father’s hospital stay only crushed her more. She watched her dreams of walking down the aisle with her father, her daughter/ father dance, and her father smiling under the Jewish ceremonial chuppah vanish with her vision of her perfect day.

Nothing was going to be like she thought it would. But then again unexpected surprises do come up in this era of technological extravagance.

Determined to make his bride happy, fiancé Darren texted his good friend Robert Burko, a web entrepreneur with his own visions of grandeur and he came up with a solution.

Arie would be at the wedding. Not in person but on an iPad.

Arie walks down the asile without moving his legs

And that’s what happened. Using Skype and an iPad that was carried around the wedding and reception Arie was able to watch his beloved daughter get married. And while it broke his heart to not hold his daughter’s hand as she walked down the aisle he did get to smile at the couple under the chuppah, he did get to “sit” at the head table, and he did get to watch the guests get drunk and make fools of themselves on the dance floor.

He also got to do the daughter / father dance. There was a small ceremony outside the Emergency ward of the hospital earlier that day (without his doctor’s consent) to sign the Jewish marriage contract and this was when he and his little girl danced to the song he wrote and recorded for her called “My Little Girl.” All 25 in attendance cried.

Back to the wedding, Arie’s only complaint was the way it ended for him;

“Mila came and said, ‘It’s 1 o’clock. You have to go to sleep.’ I said, ‘No, I want to watch.’ She said, ‘No, it’s time to sleep.’ And she turned the iPad off!” [Toronto Star]