Jeremy Finlayson and Kellie Gardner tie the knot in surprise wedding

Port Adelaide star Jeremy Finlayson and his partner Kellie Gardner have tied the knot in heartwarming scenes.

Port Adelaide star Jeremy Finlayson and his wife Kellie Finlayson were married today at Tennyson Beach, South Australia . Picture: @kelliefinlayson_ / Instagram

Port Adelaide star Jeremy Finlayson and his partner Kellie Gardner have tied the knot in a surprise wedding over the weekend.

The couple had originally planned to get married in October but brought the big day forward after Gardner’s heartbreaking cancer reveal.

While doctors said Gardner’s stage four lung cancer is terminal, the couple said they weren’t about to give up and they proved that over the weekend.

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The pair shared the same image to their social media accounts with both flashing their wedding rings in their wedding attire.

They captioned the posts “The Finlaysons”. Kellie also shared a post to her Instagram story alongside her bridesmaids.

The happy couple. Picture: @kelliefinlayson_ / Instagram

The bride on her big day.

The heartwarming wedding scenes come off the back of a heartbreaking reveal that Gardner had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.

Gardner was diagnosed with the deadly disease just months after finishing her treatment for bowel cancer, which had emerged shortly after the birth of their first child Sophia in August 2021.

The pair had celebrated at the end of the footy season after a year of chemotherapy, radiation and surgeries had seen doctors believing they had removed the cancer and that it would not return.

But while relaxing over Christmas, Kellie felt a tightening in her chest.

After ruling out Covid, the couple’s nightmare returned after a mass “a bit bigger than a tennis ball” was discovered in her chest cavity, having metastasised from her colon.

Port Adelaide star Jeremy Finlayson, his fiance Kellie Gardner and their daughter Sophia, 18 months, on February 2nd, 2023, at their Hendon home. Picture: Tom Huntley

The family of three are still keen to add to their home with Gardner telling Mark Soderstrom’s The Soda Room podcast they would like to have another child.

“I would do it this year if I could, but obviously I can’t bring up a newborn right now, but, yeah, (having another baby is the goal),” Gardner said.

“We’ve been going through fertility stuff. We do talk about the future a bit like trying to make Soph a sister or brother,” Finlayson said.

Gardner revealed no timeline had been put on her terminal diagnosis and that it’s “all about controlling, managing that to a point that they can then do radiotherapy, possible resect”.

But Gardner also called for all Australians to get checked out if they feel something unusual in their digestive system.

“If I had got it checked,” Kellie says. “If I had got all of my tummy problems checked and not just been thinking I had a lactose intolerance like every other Joe, Dick and Harry these days. If I had got it checked.

“You hear cancer and you attach it to a 60-year-old. You don’t attach it to a 25-year-old who is quite healthy, who runs marathons and who just had a baby.

“I was a fit, young mum. You just don’t attach it to that.

“Like I was a fit young mum. You just don’t attach it to that. I was an angry woman.”

The couple tied the knot in heartwarming scenes. Picture: Tom Huntley

Finlayson was glowing of his partner, saying he wouldn’t have been able to fight and take the news like she has.

“She’s just a super human I guess,” Finlayson said. “Just for someone who go through what she’s done. And then hit it head on …

“I know what I’d be doing, I’d be curled up in bed and sorry for myself, but she wants to get out there and help people and like she’s fighting for a life really.

“I’m still in denial. Me listening to her, it’s like she works for the cancer council or something. but I’ve always been in denial since she got diagnosed the first 18 months ago. I’ve been in denial and still am because we’re so young. I actually don’t know how she can do it, really.”

Originally published as Jeremy Finlayson and Kellie Gardner tie the knot in surprise wedding