Los Angeles, March 7 (Reuters): A California couple whose wedding plans appeared thwarted when a lung infection landed the groom in the isolation ward of a hospital were married over the weekend, in a ceremony conducted over Skype.

Samuel Kim and Helen Oh, both 27, had friends and family members travelling from as far away as their native Korea and from New York to their planned wedding ceremony in the southern California city of Fullerton on Saturday. So when Kim began spitting up blood last week, he was initially too nervous to tell his bride for fear of causing her grief, he told Reuters.

When he finally did tell Oh later in the week, the couple improvised a solution by holding the wedding via the Web video conferencing system.

“Guests said it was inspirational, they really admired my fiance for being able to stand at the altar in the manner that she did, alone and not crying the whole time,” Kim said from his bed at UCI Medical Center in Orange. “She was able to hold her ground and I was able to hold my ground, not crying or anything,” he said. Oh said the Skype wedding was not the perfect way to have a ceremony, but that guests were happy. “He said he will make up for it, he promised me he’s going to be the best husband in the world,” Oh said.