<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[BEAUTIFUL, ALSO, ARE THE SOULS OF MY BLACK SISTERS]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[Ann]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/author/kathmanduk2/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[JOY TURNS TO SORROW AS BRIDE DIES DURING FIRST&nbsp;DANCE]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<table border="0" cellPadding="0" cellSpacing="0" style="margin-bottom:0;width:575px;">
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<div>Holding the tiara his wife, Kim Sjostrom, wore on their wedding night, Teddy Efkarpides, 43, is still grieving over her Jan. 19 death, in his Sunrise, Fla., home.</div>
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<div style="text-align:left;" class="caption"><b>Jared Lazarus</b><b>:</b> AP</div>
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<span class="timestamp"><font size="1"><font color="#ef4d15"><b>Feb. 9, 2008, 5:33PM</b><br />
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<p class="copyright">Associated Press</p>
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<div class="pic">DAVIE, Fla. — Kim Sjostrom wanted a real-life version of the film <em>My Big Fat Greek Wedding</em>, which played in the background as friends fixed her hair and makeup before her own marriage ceremony.</div>
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<div class="bodycopy">But less than an hour after she and Teddy Efkarpides were wed, Sjostrom crumpled in her husband&#8217;s arms during a Greek song that means &#8220;Love Me.&#8221;</p>
<p>At 36, Sjostrom was dead from heart disease.</p>
<p>The wedding had became a project at Davie Elementary School, where Sjostrom taught first grade. Fellow teachers provided the wedding gown, the flowers and decorations. One of them, an ordained minister, performed the ceremony.</p>
<p>&#8220;It was perfect for her,&#8221; said Dominic Church, the minister friend.</p>
<p>Sjostrom carried blue and white flowers during the ceremony — the colors of the Greek flag — as she exchanged vows with Efkarpides, a 43-year-old carpenter and Navy veteran. They had met three years to the day before the Jan. 19 wedding.</p>
<p>During the couple&#8217;s first dance, Sjostrom complained of being lightheaded. Efkarpides thought his wife, a diabetic, needed sugar, but she collapsed.</p>
<p>Wedding guests, paramedics and doctors at a nearby hospital were unable to revive her.</p>
<p>She had a previous cardiac episode in her 20s and was a poster child — literally — for juvenile diabetes, relatives and friends said. Efkarpides recalled seeing the poster featuring her on New York subways.</p>
<p>He consoles himself by reading a list of &#8220;101 Reasons Why I Love You&#8221; that Sjostrom gave him their first Christmas together. &#8220;Number 1. You make me smile.&#8221;</p>
<p>No. 98 is especially difficult: &#8220;You&#8217;re the one I want to grow old with.&#8221;</p></div>
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<a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/5528145.html">http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/5528145.html</a></p>
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