Although Jennifer Landreth is part of the theater community, she usually works behind the scenes as a stage manager.

But on Saturday, she took center stage and got married, fearlessly navigating a wedding day she never saw coming.

Wearing a bright head scarf instead of a veil, she grasped her father's arm with shaking fingers. As the two walked down a hospital corridor, the pale pastel walls stood in sharp contrast to the bride's black-and-fuchsia ensemble.

The intimate wedding at the oncology unit at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas befitted Ms. Landreth, 28, and her fiancé, Kyle Sechrest, 31, who friends and family say live life on their own terms.

On April 26, Ms. Landreth received a diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a rare form of cancer that typically strikes children.

Both Dallas residents work in local theater, but Ms. Landreth also travels to productions around the country. She had accepted a job this summer in New York City when she was felled with migraine headaches, shortness of breath and bruising.

One day, she just couldn't get out of bed.

Mr. Sechrest brought her to the emergency room at Presbyterian, where she has been receiving chemotherapy.

The couple met in college and have been dating for two years. They hadn't made any marriage plans.

But as Mr. Sechrest watched a deep well of certainty and strength rise from within Ms. Landreth, he said, "it made me absolutely certain that this was the woman that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with."

He proposed in her hospital room. He had to ask her three times before she accepted.

"At first I asked him, 'Is this just for insurance purposes?' " she said, laughing as she recalled his proposal.

Then, she turned serious.

"You just never know how a person will react to something like this," Ms. Landreth said. "I was trying to give him a way out."

Mr. Sechrest shook his head forcefully, "And I wouldn't let her."

The two decided that they wanted a small but memorable ceremony in the place where they've spent so much of their time: the hospital.

"It just made sense to do it here, while I'm feeling well," she said.

Her friends and family responded, crafting colorful flower arrangements and rounding up a minister and a singer, both theater friends.

"We're a tribe," said Mark Walz, a minister at the Unitarian church in Oak Cliff.

He said the Dallas Theater Center held a fundraiser and blood drive for Ms. Landreth.

"We're all inspired by their courage and determination," he said.

During the ceremony, nurses and hospital staff gathered in the hallway near the ceremony, wiping away tears.

Ms. Landreth recited her vows in a calm, clear voice. Then the newlyweds cut into a hot pink-and-black polka-dot cake and toasted, "To life."

A person who typically likes order and control, Ms. Landreth said her illness has taught her to embrace the unexpected and let others help.

"It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life ... letting go," she said. "It's a very humbling thing."

Her treatment is scheduled to last six months. The couple say her long-term prognosis is hard to predict because her type of cancer is uncommon in adults, and she's still early in her treatments.

"We're supposed to ..." she stopped and corrected herself. "We are moving to Indiana in six months," she said of a position she's accepted teaching stage management at Ball State University.

"We've made plans to manage the illness there," she said. "We won't let this stop us."