Annaliese Holland’s Heartbreaking Wish: Wearing a Wedding Dress Before Voluntary Assisted Dying

At just 26 years old, Annaliese Holland from Adelaide, Australia, hasn’t eaten a single meal in ten years.Her rare condition — autoimmune autonomic ganglionopathy (AAG) — attacked and destroyed her autonomic nervous system before she even turned 18. As a result, her body can no longer digest food, regulate blood pressure, or perform many basic functions without constant medical support and machines.

She has survived sepsis 25 times. Her spine has fractured in four places, and her sternum has cracked in half. The powerful medications that kept her alive have eaten away at her bones and caused her to lose her teeth. Many of her birthdays have been spent in hospital beds, while she watched friends fall in love, get married, and start families — as her own life remained painfully on hold.

Last year, after a thorough three-week medical and psychological evaluation, she was approved for voluntary assisted dying (VAD) under South Australia’s law. She described the moment she received the approval as one of the happiest days she had experienced in a very long time.She has now chosen a private date.

She hasn’t shared it with anyone.Before that day arrives, Annaliese has a personal “f*** it” list of things she still wants to experience. One of them was to wear a wedding dress — something she had long convinced herself she never wanted, until she finally admitted how much it truly meant to her. She wore the dress in a beautiful private moment, stood beside her father, and described the experience as beautiful, heartbreaking, and somehow healing, all at the same time.Her next wish is simple yet profound: to hold a newborn baby.Annaliese isn’t giving up.

She has fought courageously for more than two decades. She just wants, for once, to have the power to choose how and when her suffering ends.This is a deeply moving story of strength, loss, and the search for dignity and peace. 14 web pages