When Clint Skene thinks about his impending wedding on Saturday, his mind fills with the image of his happy, glowing bride, Raphael.
"Raph has always been one to wear her heart on her sleeve - I guarantee all day she's going to need waterproof mascara," the 30-year-old says.
"She's dealing with a base level of pain medication at the moment, but I don't think she's going to need it on Saturday - she's going to be so full of endorphins and joy."
Raphael Lindquist, 29, jazz singer, high school teacher and dark chocolate lover, has stage three metastatic bowel cancer.
Told just days ago stage two chemotherapy was no longer working, she and Clint cancelled their Montville honeymoon and are preparing to move to Melbourne for a trial treatment.
This already extraordinary story became even more so after hundreds of friends and loved ones donated more than $27,000 in 24 hours to help the couple uproot their lives.
Ms Lindquist had no reason to suspect cancer when she failed to get over jetlag after returning from the couple's first trip to New York together in February.
"I treated my body like a theme park, she treated hers like a temple," Mr Skene said.
"She was very health conscious, didn't feed herself crap, there was no history in her family...she is not the person this should be happening to, and yet, it is."
Told she may only have six months to live, Ms Lindquist even told Mr Skene she would understand if he wanted to leave.
"We'd only been together just under a year at that point, and it was such a huge thing," he said.
"But...it was never on the cards that I would walk away."
In fact, the pair decided to get married, with wedding planning a welcome distraction from chemotherapy.
But just over a week ago, doctors told the couple tumours were returning.
Wary of damaging Ms Lindquist's system even more, the pair looked instead to a Royal Melbourne Hospital trial, in which existing drugs for arthritis are used in cancer treatment.
"They actually block cancer pathways," Mr Skene said.
"So cancer can't communicate to other cells and multiply."
Flooded with offers of help from friends who didn't really know what they could do, Mr Skene used his background in digital media to establish a Go Fund Me campaign, setting a fundraising target of $5000 to help the couple with the costs of moving, care, making appointments and living without paid work for a time.
The campaign went live on Monday afternoon, and 24 hours later had topped $27,000.
"It's just been incredible, people just wanting to give back to Raph," he said.
"The one story that everyone's been saying is that Raph changed their life… when I've asked them why they've all said the same thing, that she made them feel OK to be themselves, and she doesn't judge," he said.
Mr Skene said being an artist and a singer, the pair weren't "big money people".
"But this is absolutely going to go so far to provide the best possible care and least amount of stress to Raphael through this."
Mr Skene said their families were hoping Ms Lindquist would be discharged from hospital on Wednesday afternoon, to give her time at home before the wedding.
But having met his fiancee while competing at a wrestling match in early 2013, Mr Skene said it would take more than a location to hold the ceremony back.
"I knew from the moment I met her she was the impossible prize that I didn't deserve," he said.
"Saturday is the day I'm marrying that woman, whether it's the church or not."
For more information about bowel cancer and how to get checked, visit Bowel Cancer Australia.
