At 25, Annaliese Holland faced a choice that would reshape her family’s future. She chose to leave them with something beautiful.
When most people think about what they’d do with unlimited time, the possibilities seem endless. For Annaliese Holland, time was the one thing she didn’t have. But that didn’t stop her from doing something remarkable.
The 25-year-old from Adelaide, South Australia, has spent nearly her entire life battling a rare and devastating neurological condition called Autoimmune Autonomic Ganglionopathy. It’s a disease so severe that her immune system attacks her own nervous system, affecting everything from her digestion to her heart rate. After years of hospitalizations, infections, constant pain, and survival hanging by a thread, Annaliese made a profound decision: to live on her own terms, by choosing medical assistance to end her suffering when the time came.
But before that chapter closed, she wanted to write one more story worth telling.
The “F*-It List” That Changed Everything**
Rather than let despair define her final chapter, Annaliese created what she calls her “F***-It List”—a collection of dreams she wanted to tick off while she still could. Among those dreams was something deeply personal: to wear a wedding dress. Not because she wanted to get married, but because it represented something she’d always thought was impossible.
“I always told everyone I didn’t want a wedding,” Annaliese explained. “But I think that was just my way of protecting myself from the grief of knowing it would never happen.”
Growing up, she watched her friends get engaged, see themselves in white dresses, and walk down aisles. These moments—the rites of passage most women experience without thinking twice—seemed like a different world entirely for Annaliese. She’d spent her formative years in hospital beds instead of school dances, fighting infections instead of planning proms. She’d attended three funerals but never a wedding. She’d given eulogies instead of bridesmaid speeches.
So when she decided she wanted one day to feel like a bride, even without the groom, she reached out to Adelaide Bridal Collective. Emma Lewis and Faith Luke, the owners, didn’t hesitate. They offered to honor her request—to give this extraordinary young woman an extraordinary day.
A Day to Remember
The fitting was scheduled with meticulous care. Annaliese required powerful pain medication just to breathe through her compromised airways. She needed breaks between movements. Her body, ravaged by years of illness, demanded constant attention and support. Yet nothing was going to stop her from experiencing this moment.
As she stood before the mirror in an elegant white gown, something shifted. For the first time in years, she wasn’t looking at a sick girl. She was looking at herself—not defined by illness, but defined by her own strength and beauty.
“I felt like the old Annaliese,” she recalled, tears streaming as she described that moment. “I could see past my illness and see the person I really am, instead of only seeing what’s been taken from me.”
What made this moment even more powerful was its significance for her father, Patrick. Traditionally, walking a daughter down the aisle is the father’s moment to shine—the one ceremonial role reserved exclusively for him. In most families, it’s one of the most anticipated moments a father experiences. Annaliese’s father wouldn’t get to have that moment the traditional way. But on this day, when he walked his daughter in her wedding dress, that sacred milestone belonged entirely to him.
“Usually, all the preparation is about the girls and the women,” Annaliese explained, thinking of her mother and sister. “But walking a daughter down the aisle—that’s the one thing that’s just for Dad. He gets to be that person.”
Leaving a Legacy of Light
What makes Annaliese’s story resonate so deeply isn’t just the wedding dress or the photographs. It’s what she understands about grief, family, and the power of creating meaningful moments before time runs out.
She knows that when she’s gone, the weight of her absence will fall on those who loved her most. But she also knows that they’ll have something irreplaceable: memories of her feeling like herself, dressed like a princess, surrounded by family who cherished her.
“When I’m gone, I’m gone. I’ll be happy and peaceful,” she said. “But everyone else continues to live on and feel sad. So to leave them with a memory and something to talk about—pictures of this day that’s happy—that’s really special.”
Annaliese’s journey with Autoimmune Autonomic Ganglionopathy has been unimaginably difficult. She’s survived sepsis 25 times. She’s endured procedures, infections, and a body that seems designed to betray her at every turn. She requires total parenteral nutrition delivered through an IV just to survive. She faces imminent major surgery that will require full teeth extraction. She battles chronic debilitating pain every single day.
Yet in all of that suffering, she found a way to think about her family’s grief before her own release from it.
A Choice Made With Clarity
In November, Annaliese was approved for voluntary assisted dying (VAD)—a legal option available in all Australian states for terminally ill patients with decision-making capacity who are experiencing unbearable suffering. She didn’t choose this lightly, and she isn’t alone: over 2,400 terminally ill Australians have chosen medical assistance in dying.
For Annaliese, it wasn’t about giving up. It was about taking control. It was about refusing to waste her remaining time waiting for a slow, painful decline when she could spend it living and creating memories instead.
“I’m not giving up,” she told her father during one of their most difficult conversations. “I’ve just had enough.”
What’s remarkable about her story isn’t that she chose to end her suffering—it’s how she spent her time before making that choice. She didn’t spiral into despair. She didn’t isolate. She created a list of things that mattered, and she ticked them off one by one. And that wedding dress moment? It became far more than just trying on a beautiful gown. It became a love letter to her family.
The Message in a White Dress
In that white dress, Annaliese communicated something powerful without ever having to say it. She told her father that he mattered. She told her mother and sister that their love gave her strength. She told everyone who loves her that even in the face of impossibility, beauty is still possible.
When you’re not expected to see tomorrow, today becomes sacred. When your time is measured in months rather than decades, every moment transforms into something precious. Annaliese understood this with a clarity that most of us never have to develop.
Her wedding dress fitting wasn’t about marriage. It was about legacy. It was about ensuring that her family wouldn’t only remember the illness, the hospitalizations, and the pain. They would also remember the day when Annaliese felt like herself—like a normal 25-year-old experiencing something she thought was impossible.
What Her Story Teaches Us
In a world obsessed with denying death and avoiding conversations about dying, Annaliese is having those conversations openly. She’s not making her family’s grief about themselves—she’s making sure they have something beautiful to hold onto. She’s reframing what it means to live fully, not in the number of years you have, but in the quality and intentionality of the time you do have.
“Even though I am dying, I am 25. I still have things I want to achieve,” she said. “I still want to feel like a normal young adult.”
And on the day she wore white, felt her father’s arm linked through hers, and saw herself reflected in the mirror as something more than her diagnosis—on that day, she absolutely did.
That’s the real story behind the wedding dress. It’s not about assisted dying or terminal illness or the choices we make when time runs short. It’s about a young woman who refused to let illness define her final chapter, and a family that will forever treasure the memory of the day she felt like a princess.
Sometimes, the most powerful way to honor a life isn’t measured in years. It’s measured in moments that matter.