My fiance James and I met while I was receiving chemotherapy a few years ago. We stalked each other for a year, then in 2010 he asked me to marry him while wearing a kilt and a fireman jacket.

James was a chef, a real foodie chef, and wouldn't let me cook unless it was dessert. He was also a volunteer firefighter, and every year we would say, "Let's just get married now... or now..." Then we had two daughters, Tilly-Grace and Luna-Pearl, and we got even further from actually planning the wedding.

This year, I said enough was enough, and I booked a celebrant for our eldest daughter's second birthday, September 27, 2015. We booked some food trucks and bouncy castles for a fun kid's party with a wedding thrown in. We spoke to the celebrant, paid him, and even sent out invites. But that day this year won't be happening. Instead I became a bride who lost her partner.

James went into the hospital on a Friday with liver and kidney failure, partially due to chemotherapy. By the next Tuesday, he was in and out of consciousness in the ICU. We performed a symbolic ceremony that day. My fiance died June 3, 2015, at 12:32 a.m.. I was devastated.

But now I want to explain how I overcame this experience and started to move on. I started to take advantage of life.

The first thing I did to honor James was to wear my wedding dress and flower crown to his funeral. I wanted to celebrate life and our plans for the future. Plus, I really wanted to rock my two under two strapped to me in a lace-covered beaded monster dress. I recited an altered version of our vows at the funeral, too. My thought was that if you have a chance to wear the dress you chose, the dress you love, just wear it! Wear it to the funeral, wear it to a ball, wear it to honor the love you had and still have.

My family and I are still planning to have a party on the original wedding date. It's still my eldest daughter's second birthday, after all. We will always be married without the certificate (it was just a piece of paper to us anyway), so it will be another day to honor James and what we had.

The things that helped me were just knowing that James was out of pain and that his two little girls will always be a part of him. Wearing my dress and saying my vows at a celebration of his (and our) life helped me to move on a little more. Every day it gets easier, but it's never easy. But I know that life goes on.

To the partners left behind, I can give you this: "Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, when one only remembers to turn on the light." - Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

As James used to say, "Peace, love, and Harry Potter."