Real Life

Paralysed bride walks down the aisle at her wedding

The wedding guests couldn't contain their emotion.
paralysed bride

paralysed bride

A woman who has spent the last eight years confined to a wheelchair has walked down the aisle at her wedding, even enjoying a first dance with her new husband.

At just 17-years-old, Jaquie Goncher was paralysed from the neck down due to a spinal cord injury.

She was told she’d probably never walk again, but just months after her injury she was able to make small movements in her legs.

Despite these triumphs, Jaquie spent the majority of the next eight years in her wheelchair, while gradually trying to build her strength.

Ahead of getting engaged to husband Andy in 2015, Jaquie was able to walk around her home while holding onto walls.

What got in her way of doing this for longer however was her blood pressure – which was so low it would force her to stop. Jaquie says she had to be her own motivator, as she realised she wasn’t going to get any better unless she forced herself to the gym and tried to get stronger.

“The first time I decided to go back to the gym, I got on a stationary bike,” Jaquie explains. “You had to have your legs going a certain speed for the machine to stay on, but my legs wouldn’t be able to push it fast enough and the machine would turn off. I got so upset that I put my head down on the machine and I just started to cry. I was like, ‘I can’t do this.’ I prayed and God said, ‘You put in the effort and I will meet you there.’ So I just kept pedalling. When the machine would go off, I would laugh and pedal again. It was hard at first but after I got past that first little bump, everything else was a lot easier.”

The inspirational twenty-something danced with her husband on the night of her wedding, and is now adamant she will be running again someday.

She says: “I want to use my cane more, and be OK with falling down or something going wrong. I’m not very good at it yet. When you’re a young girl with crazy hair and you’re walking with a cane, people are curious. You have to not pay attention to being stared at. It’s really putting myself out there to reach my goal no matter what the circumstances are.”

Pictures of the couple’s big day were taken by Love Stories.

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