Cancer survivor and fianc to be first-ever couple married at city hall

More than two months after asking for submissions, the City of Winnipeg has selected the city's best love story, and the couple who will be the first to tie the knot at city hall.

• Winnipeg city hall searching for city's best love story

They're Lisa Carson-Walton and Chris Herie, and they've been through a lot together. They met and started dating in high school, lived together through collegeand have two young children, Tiernan and Dahlia.

In March, Carson-Walton was diagnosed with breast cancerafter noticing a lump on her breast in January. It's the same disease that took her mother's life when she was young.

By May, she went in for a bilateral mastectomy and reconstructive surgery, and quickly began post-surgery chemotherapy, which wrapped up just in time for her to be able to take Tiernan to his first day of school.

Since then, they've beenin what Carson-Walton calls the "scan-xiety" stage of cancer treatment: a "holding pattern ofsecondary scans post-treatment medication, estrogen blockers."

"You want to hear those magic words like 'remission,' and 'no evidence of disease,' because they give you a sense of safety," she said.

For now, the couple said they're just trying to get back to normal right after they get married in a ceremony Carson-Walton jokes is "all kind of weird."

"We had a really crummy year, so something novel to kind of cap off the year and kind of end it on a high note, when we've had such a crummy year in general that was a lot of the reasoning, I guess," she said.

The couple tried to get married at city hall four years agoon their 10-year anniversary, but back then, the city didn't offer that service.

"We got engaged before we bought the house and before we got pregnant with our son," Carson-Walton said.

"Once kids come around, marriage kind of came bottom rung priority shift. [It] wasn't as important to have a big to-do or anything like that, because it didn't change much in our relationship, really, I guess."

Carson-Walton said she and Herie are excited for the wedding, and their kids are, too.

"It's nice that we're out of the worst of it so we can kind of just start doing more family things, I guess," she said.

Carson-Walton and Herie are set to get married on Friday in a small ceremony attended by Dahlia, Tiernan, family andclose friends.