A vehicle belonging to a Calgary couple set to be married was stolen, which contained a wheelchair belonging to the groom and a wedding dress, weeks before their ceremony.<\/p>\n
The last location Alexis Solberg says she left her Jeep Grand Cherokee at the Bianca Amor\u2019s Liquidation store parking lot in Canyon Meadows in southwest Calgary before it was stolen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was probably in the store for 15 minutes, came out, and my vehicle was gone,\u201d she tells CityNews while in her living room.<\/p>\n
But this is no ordinary car theft, as inside the vehicle was her fianc\u00e9e, Jeremy Van Deventer\u2019s wheelchair \u2014 which he relies on due to ALS \u2014 and Solberg\u2019s wedding dress.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very frustrating.. Seems like nothing is going our way,\u201d Van Deventer explains as he sits next to Solberg and his daughter Eveleigh.<\/p>\n
He was diagnosed with ALS about six months ago, saying, \u201cEvery day is a different challenge for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
This past Christmas, he asked Solberg to marry him.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust like a penguin finds its soulmate and spends the rest of its lives together, will you marry me?\u201d Solberg says, reading his proposal in a video posted to social media. \u201cOh baby, don\u2019t cry, love you\u2019re going to make me cry.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family says the toughest part of the whole situation is that Van Deventer is now stuck inside. He recently got a motorized wheelchair; however, it\u2019s not very effective in the snow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he gets to go out, and we get to spend time with Eveleigh too, doing things together as a family, it\u2019s just, now we kind of don\u2019t have that. Well, also, it\u2019s difficult,\u201d Solberg said. \u201cThat gets me to my appointments, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
They add that the situation is even more difficult because they traded in their two vehicles for an SUV after the diagnosis, so they could accommodate the three of them and a wheelchair.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the support they\u2019ve received from the Calgary community has been very heartwarming, with many people reaching out to Solberg, offering to let her borrow their wedding dress. Unfortunately, she says it\u2019s not quite the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to have a dress that I can keep forever, and Everleigh can have it when she\u2019s older and do what she likes with it, so then she has that memory of her dad as well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The wedding is taking place on March 14, and the family says they\u2019re going to enjoy it with or without their missing items. <\/p>\n