Katie Thurston and her husband, Jeff Arcuri, made the most of a not-so-fun situation during their honeymoon.
“So, Jeff and I are celebrating our honeymoon with some drinks,” Thurston, 34, said in a Sunday, March 23, Instagram Story video while sitting in a hospital room. She turned the camera to her partner and their drinks on the table beside her. “Cheers, baby,” she quipped as she and Acruri jokingly toasted with their bottles. “To [being] husband and wife!”
Thurston captioned the clip, “Honeymoon at Columbia [Presbyterian Hospital] with some mocktails.” The former Bachelorette didn’t specify the reason behind her hospital visit, though she is currently battling stage 3 breast cancer.
In an exclusive interview with Us Weekly earlier this month, Arcuri revealed that he and Thurston were “getting married in two days.” The pair tied the knot during a private backyard ceremony on Saturday, March 22.
Members of Bachelor Nation have rallied around former lead Katie Thurston as she battles cancer. “Life update: I have breast cancer,” Thurston, 34, wrote via Instagram on Saturday, February 15, revealing how she and fiancé Jeff Arcuri spent their Valentine’s Day. “I used my morning to figure out insurance for NYC and laws on preexisting […]
“You would think it would cause more tribulation or problems between you, but it’s bonded us more than anything else, which is why we’re moving up the wedding a little bit,” Arcuri told Us of how Thurston’s cancer diagnosis affected their wedding plans.
Thurston called their low-key wedding “so sweet,” adding, “Obviously, we were wanting to plan a wedding and there’s a lot of emotions that come in with chemo and the impact and the health and we don’t know what the next year looks like. And one night he said, ‘I want to show you that I still love you and that I’m here to stay. I’ll get married to you tomorrow.’ We flew our parents in from Michigan and Washington State. We got our marriage license and a friend is just gonna marry us.”
The newlyweds also shared their plans to host a bigger wedding once Thurston finished her cancer battle. “It was this kind gesture of him saying, truly, in sickness and in health,” Thurston gushed to Us. “He is proving that he’s here to stay. He shows up every day and he does it in ways that just continue to surprise.”
Thurston and Arcuri got engaged after less than a year of dating in September 2024. Months later, Thurston announced her breast cancer diagnosis via social media. “This is day one of sharing and is going to be a long one,” she wrote in her lengthy February 15 Instagram post. “This first step of acceptance of my reality was the hardest. But I am ready to fight this.”
Arcuri has been by his now-wife’s side through her health struggles, even postponing several of his comedy shows last month to support her through treatment. “I’ll forever be so thankful for this selfless act,” she wrote in reaction to his sweet gesture via her Instagram Story on February 20.
As she continues to undergo cancer treatment, Thurston shared that she changed her mind about wanting kids while preparing to freeze her eggs. “One day you think you don’t want kids,” she wrote via her Instagram Story on March 9. “Then one day you meet the man of your dreams and would do anything to make sure we can start a family in the future.”
She also broke down the cost of her fertility treatment with fans, showing in another March 9 Instagram Story that her insurance will pay $11,267.43 out of the $11,337.43 cost of a fertility shot. Without a discount, the shot would have cost $24,349.18.
“As someone with breast cancer, a lot of my fertility treatments will be covered in the state of New York,” she explained at the time.
