While most any wedding dance is touching in its tenderness, the one Lauren Jackson and her husband Joel Jackson got to share earlier this month is nothing short of miraculous, if a bit delayed. Joel, as it turns out, has been paralyzed from the neck down for the past six years.

In 2009, as reported by NBC News, Joel was in a horrific car accident that took the life of one 15-year-old girl and severed his spine from his head, resulting in an internal decapitation. It was the sort of injury that’s almost always fatal, but somehow Joel survived. And he even managed to find love again, reconnecting with high school sweetheart Lauren when she began visiting him. Two years ago, in September 2013, they married, with Lauren sitting in Joel’s lap as they danced to Edwin McCain’s I’ll Be.

On Oct 1, the married couple, both 26 and living in Florida, decided to take advantage of Joel’s continuing success in physical therapy and recreate that dance standing up, having McCain’s song piped into the speakers at the Brooks Rehabilitation hospital in Jacksonville, Fla, It was the fulfillment of a promise made between the couple. “When you can talk, I want to renew our vows. And when you can walk, I want you to dance with me," Lauren told her then-new husband, according to NBC News.

Joel was able to move via a ZeroG device that supported most of his weight, and Lauren, as she often does, uploaded Joel’s accomplishment to the internet.

“I don't know if you're like me, but I have photographed (and now videoed) tons of brides and grooms during their first dance. I always wondered what they giggled and smiled about, what the conversation was about,” Lauren wrote on her and Joel’s blog, The Voyage Less Traveled. “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.”

For his part, Joel felt “euphoric.”

The happy couple intends to have Joel continue his rigorous physical therapy, with the hopes that he will someday regain the ability to speak.

“Joel's quality of life might be different than what they would want for themselves, but I'm convinced it's more rich and joyous than they could imagine,” Lauren wrote. “It is the little triumphs that [are] giant steps for us. And for the little things, I am grateful.”