Why this couple, married 6 years, only just got to finally have their first dance

Lauren Jackson married her husband Joel 6 years ago, but it was only this year that the couple got to share their first dance as husband and wife.

As NBC News reports, when Joel was 20, he was involved in a car crash that threw him half a football field away from the accident. The crash shattered his spine, an “internal decapitation” that few people recover from, leaving Joel a quadriplegic. Lauren, who had known Joel in high school, had not seen him since their graduation, and when she learned about the accident, she began to visit him in the hospital. Joel could not, (and still cannot) speak because of a jaw injury, and so, with the help of a machine that allowed his eyes to operate a computer, the two began sending text messages. Their relationship turned romantic, and in 2009, Joel proposed with a video his friends helped produce. That same year the couple was wed, and as their “first dance” song played (Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be”) Joel’s father lifted Lauren onto Joel’s lap.

It was a beautiful moment, to be sure, but the couple still longed for an official first dance as husband and wife. That wish was granted recently, when Joel’s physical therapists tried him out on a device called ZeroG, which, as NBC News explains, “…allows patients to stand upright while allowing their legs to support a small amount of their body weight.

When Lauren saw her husband upright, she impulsively asked him if he wanted to dance. He agreed, a recording of “I’ll Be” was quickly located, and finally, after six long years, this couple got to share their first dance as husband and wife.

“I don’t know if you’re like me, but I have photographed (and now videoed) tons of brides and grooms duirng their first dance,” Lauren explains on her blog. “I always wondered what they giggled and smiled about, what the conversation was about. Still to this day I find myself wondering what sweet words they are sharing in the that moment, but today, I got to relive that moment again with my groom. We shared our FIRST DANCE again this time on our feet!”

We’re so happy this couple got to finally share this milestone. Watch the very sweet video below:

(Image via YouTube.)