Cancer survivor who battled tumour nearly has wedding ceremony ruined by resort

A cancer survivor, who battled a 13cm tumour, claimed that she had her wedding day ruined by a hotel after they allegedly lost her dress and left her with a ‘dodgy stomach’.

Elizabeth Slade, 43, travelled to the four-star DoubleTree Hilton near Thame, Oxfordshire, ahead of the special occasion, which took place last Saturday.

But she spent the early hours of the wedding morning in meltdown mode and filmed a clip of herself explaining the ‘nightmare experience’ she had. 

The carer said she dropped the white frock off on Tuesday last week and arrived at the hotel on Friday but when she arrived, she claimed none of the staff helped her as she was struggling with her bags.

The 43-year-old claims she was then given a Twix and a KitKat bar by the employees to apologise for her treatment.

At 8pm the evening before her wedding, Elizabeth dined in the restaurant with her friend. She ate the calamari, her friend opted for the fish and chips and the pair shared a bottle of bubbly.

But the bride-to-be allegedly got food poisoning from her meal and described the squid as ‘chewy,’ whereas her pal was unaffected by her dish. 

Around two hours later, she went down to reception to pick up her wedding dress, but the woman on the desk said she had no idea what she was talking about. 

Elizabeth told FEMAIL: ‘She looked at me and said “What dress?”. So I sort of panicked and said “The bride’s dress, the dress I am wearing tomorrow for my wedding”. And she then said: “I don’t know anything about that?”.

‘By that time I had started to feel ill. I rushed to the toilet and had to go down to reception for more toilet rolls as there was only one in the room.’

Elizabeth then took herself outside because she was close to tears when they could not locate her frock. 

‘Then they finally found my dress, I think about 11.30 at night. And you know, it was just obviously a massive panic on for a while. 

‘Then I finally went to bed about one o’clock in the morning and at two o’clock I woke up and I was not well at all. 

‘I tried to ring reception at three o’clock in the morning to say, “Can I have more toilet roll because I’m dying here?”.

‘No answer whatsoever. I was really struggling to get down to reception, which is about a 15-minute walk. Two men were behind reception and I went down crying, asking for a toilet roll and saying that what an awful experience I’ve had.

‘I said, “I’ve now got food poisoning” and they just looked at me, they didn’t even say “sorry”, or “can we help you?”.’

Elizabeth said she was crying on the floor at around 3am in the morning before travelling to her car to express her emotions, before filming herself in tears. 

In the clip she said she had ‘nothing but disasters’ happen since she arrived at the hotel, where the cheapest twin room is around £124 a night, adding that she felt ‘so miserable and let down’. 

Elizabeth said: ‘I had wanted to get married my whole life and have a special day, but it was turning into a disaster from start to finish.’ 

‘I would never film myself crying but I thought, “I need proof of this. I need proof of what I look like at 3am on the morning of my wedding,” she said. 

‘The reason I say it’s not fair is because of what David and I have been through these past couple of years.’ 

In August 2021, Elizabeth was diagnosed with Signet Ring Cell Carcinoma, a rare type of cancer that starts in glandular cells.

She said: ‘The initial cancer journey I was given was less than a year to live because they thought it had spread everywhere.

‘But actually, when I finally had [all my] operations and [treatments], they got rid of this massive 13cm tumour at the top of my rectum. 

‘I’m extremely lucky because the scan showed a big lump in my liver. So they automatically thought it had spread, but actually it [was a] group of blood vessels in my liver and it wasn’t cancer. 

‘As far as I’m aware and as far as medical professionals are aware, I’ve got no cancer, which is just remarkable.’

Elizabeth said cancer campaigner Dame Deborah James, also known as Bowel Babe, helped her through the tough times.

‘If I hadn’t of watched her videos, I don’t think I could have taken it in such a positive stride. She was remarkable. And she definitely helped me get through my journey,’ she added.

Elizabeth said she has been waiting to get married ‘all her life’ and she had the last couple of procedures done just four weeks before her wedding. 

She said that her family has never had ‘much money’ and that they were originally planning to have a low-key wedding and smaller nuptials. 

But her mother won some money on a scratchcard and decided to use this money to give Elizabeth the fairytale wedding that she always dreamed of. 

‘Both of my parents, they’ve worked hard their whole life, David and I have worked really hard and we’ve never had much money to spare. 

‘So we were planning a much more low key wedding. I won the lottery of life and about a year ago, my mum won some money on a scratchcard just before Christmas. 

‘She got very excited and said she’d like to pay for my wedding, so that’s why it then got upgraded slightly. 

‘I was able to have a beautiful wedding dress and my mum got my front teeth done. I my front teeth weren’t perfect before, they were knocked out when I was 10 years old.’

Luckily, Elizabeth was able to take some Imodium pills and felt well enough to walk down the aisle and marry the love of her life, David Slade, 47. 

‘I finally got to sleep at 5am and had an hours sleep before I was up again. I had a wedding breakfast booked but I could not eat it.

‘I decided to ring my Maid of Honour and ask her to bring me some Imodium pills. I took one and it seemed to work,’ said Elizabeth, who has a teenage daughter from a previous relationship.

‘Because of the squid, I was terrified there was going to be an accident in my lovely white wedding dress. I thought I would have to walk down the aisle holding my bottom.’ 

She also managed to hold it together at the later reception at the Notley Tythe Barn in Long Crendon, where she took to the microphone and sang three songs including ‘It Must Be Love’ by Madness.

Looking back now on the wedding that nearly never was, she said: ‘I have not even had an apology from the Hilton. It was absolutely horrendous and I thought it was never going to happen.’ 

Her husband David did not hear about the experience Elizabeth had until their wedding day.

‘I paid for a nightmare experience and they still haven’t offered to give the money back,’ she added.  

The morning after they tied the knot, one of their wedding party then told the happy couple that they had stayed in a better room than them.  

‘We got a standard suite and she found out the next day that a friend of hers, obviously you know not the friend’s fault, but they were given [a better room] ahead of us.

‘It’s a really big suite with two different rooms. I think we put two and two together and realised that we should have had that one.’

Elizabeth claimed she rang the hotel ahead of the stay and was told they  would be upgraded to a different room because of the special occasion.

‘[My friend] said it felt like she was in the honeymoon suite because it was so much bigger than the one she [originally] booked,’ the mother-of-one said. 

‘It was just the icing on the cake. I just thought at that point that I wanted to get out of the hotel.’

The couple are now on their honeymoon in Cyprus and say they are having a ‘lovely time.’ Elizabeth added: ‘The hotel has been phenomenal. It’s literally 100 percent the opposite of the Oxford experience.’

A spokesperson for Hilton told MailOnline: ‘We regard every guest stay as important and want to ensure that every experience is pleasurable. 

‘We were unaware of any complaint until it was made known to us by the newspaper recently. We do not want anyone to feel they didn’t have the best experience possible so if Elizabeth would make contact with us (as she hasn’t as yet) we would be delighted to discuss.’