A late-afternoon phone call to Kettering Health Main Campus set chaplain Dario Maldonado on an unexpected mission.

A new mother had just delivered a healthy baby boy, and her partner wanted help pulling off a surprise wedding before the day was over.

Maldonado, who recently joined Main Campus as a full-time chaplain after progressing through Kettering Health’s Clinical Pastoral Education program, soon learned why timing mattered. The couple had been together for five years and hoped to marry before an older son left for college. With the request coming late in the day, Maldonado began working to determine whether the ceremony could be arranged.

The new mother had already been transferred from Labor and Delivery to the Mother and Baby unit when Maldonado met with the baby’s father and gathered details about the request.

“I knew we needed to move quickly if it was going to happen,” Maldonado said.

Maldonado could help coordinate the ceremony, but he was not yet authorized to legally officiate weddings in Ohio. To fulfill the family’s request, he turned to chaplain Reggie Frey, a PRN chaplain at Main Campus and pastor of Harvest Grove Baptist Church who is certified to perform marriage ceremonies.

“I was excited,” Frey said. “As a matter of fact, it was an honor. Here we are celebrating two people coming together.”

The chaplains organized the ceremony and returned to the family’s room less than an hour after receiving the request.

As family members gathered nearby, the baby’s father shared his wish to get married that day. She tearfully agreed. With loved ones surrounding her hospital bed and their newborn son in her arms, the couple exchanged vows in a ceremony led by Frey.

For both chaplains, the experience stood apart from many of the situations they encounter in a hospital setting.

“Normally, as chaplains, we are called for sad stories when somebody is passing away,” Maldonado said. “But in this particular story, it was the joy of a family.”

The experience also reinforced the unique role chaplains play in caring for the whole person. While they are often called to support patients and families through grief, uncertainty and loss, they also help families navigate moments of celebration, connection and hope.

“Every encounter is different,” Frey said. “We’re here for one common goal, to minister to the needs of whatever needs to be done through the hospital.”

Frey said the experience stayed with him long after he left Main Campus that evening.

“I’m still on cloud nine,” he said. “We brought a new life coming to the world, we put a family together, blended family together. It was just great.”

For Maldonado, the experience reflected Kettering Health’s mission to live God’s love by promoting and restoring health.

In a reflection shared after the ceremony, he wrote that hospitals are “not only places where people experience illness and loss,” but also places where “new beginnings are celebrated, families are united, and God’s love is made visible through compassionate care.”

Looking back, Maldonado said he is grateful he pursued the request.

“Sometimes the Holy Spirit pushes you to go forward,” he said.