Martineau was willing to do whatever necessary to give his new wife, Kiersten Downs, the first dance of her dreams
Paralyzed Groom Surprises His Bride With Wedding Dance
Thomas Martineau was willing to make the impossible possible to give his new bride, Kiersten Downs, the first dance on her wedding day, even if that meant doing what everyone said was impossible.
Martineau was paralyzed and unable to walk from a motorcycle accident in 2008, and now he is confined to a wheelchair, but that did not stop him when he surprised his new bride by standing in the middle of the dance floor for the couples first dance on their wedding night.
Martineau wanted to make the day as special for Downs
The engagement lasted several years while the two faced a mounting set of challenges together. Downs was attempting to finish her Ph.D. at the University of South Florida, while Martineau was struck with a series of health issues stemming from his accident.
After moving up their wedding date to December 2016 in New York (“we wanted to get married in front of [Downs’] grandmother,” Martineau says), the groom fell suddenly ill and went into emergency surgery a few days before the two were scheduled to walk down the aisle.
With the wedding rescheduled for March, Martineau wanted to make the day as special for Downs as he could. “Being in the chair, I thought I could never be able to live up to being the husband that she could have,” he said. “That was a fear I always had: Having the wedding and being stuck in the chair and having to settle for things as they were.”
Kiersten Downs and Thomas Martineau hadn’t planned on dancing at their wedding
Kiersten Downs and Thomas Martineau hadn’t planned on dancing at their wedding, and the couple talked about how they wanted their first dance as a married couple to play out, they didn’t really have a plan.
Usually, Thomas and Kiersten like dancing together, but when they dance they take turns spinning around in Thomas’s wheelchair. They have always had a blast dancing with each other, but this time Thomas was determined to do something special for the first dance featuring Mr and Mrs Martineau.
Kiersten Downs: "I would dance with my husband regardless of his disability"
“We had talked about how we would dance, but never really came to any conclusions about it,” Downs tells Yahoo Style about the surprise. “I just figured we would improvise like we always do. Sometimes I sit on his lap, or we spin each other around just as I would if he was on two feet. There are lots of ways to dance in a wheelchair or with someone who uses a wheelchair.”
“I would dance with my husband regardless of his disability,” she said. “I met him when he was in his chair and I will forever love him regardless of his status.”
The Wedding Dance. Thomas Martineau found an inventive way to surprise his bride with a first dance at their wedding.
Right after the ceremony, Thomas was nowhere to be found. Kiersten admitted, “I started to get nervous when we all lined up for our grand entrance. Thomas was not there with me. Michelle, the wedding planner and owner of Wishing Well Barn, told me he had to go to the bathroom and that he would meet me in the reception area. I just went with it and didn’t think much about it.”
When she was announced, she took a deep breath and entered the room by herself. She couldn’t believe her eyes: There he was, standing upright before her. Through a system of wires and pulleys, their friends had literally strung Martineau from the ceiling so he could dance with his bride.
Martineau with Stephen Hill, a retired Special Forces medical sergeant
Martineau had grown close with Stephen Hill, a retired Special Forces medical sergeant and the lead trainer at the Stay in Step Spinal Cord Injury Recovery Center in Tampa where Martineau went for physical therapy after his accident. The two began exploring options for the wedding.
“Steve came in the day of the wedding, and he was sure it wasn’t going to work,” Martineau says. “He was literally running around getting gear during the ceremony. It wasn’t until pictures afterward, the wedding planner, who was the only person in the loop, came and grabbed me.”
First Dance
It was the music that sealed the moment. Downs had met Michael and Tanya Trotter, as husband-and-wife duo who play as The War and Treaty at a veteran community open mic in Tampa after publicly reading some personal essays about her deployment.
Her stories resonated deeply Michael Trotter, himself a three-time veteran of Iraq who’d been deployed around the same time as Downs. Before the December wedding, he’d played a song called “Unbreaking Your Heart” at an open mic and asked Downs if he could play it in person at their wedding.
And it worked beautifully. During the dance, the two swayed together and received claps and cheers from the crowd as he twirled her around.
Both Downs and Martineau believe that that surreal moment of their first dance would never have happened if it hadn’t been for their network of friends, veterans and otherwise, who came together to support them during their ups and downs.
“When you surround yourself with a good community, anything can happen,” says Martineau. “We met people who put us in touch with Steve, through those open mics — they all had an incredible impact on us.”
“Growth happens when we’re uncomfortable, when we challenge ourselves to share and be vulnerable. And building relationships is the key to successfully reintegrating after we leave the military.”
It all worked out for the happy couple and the surprise went off without hitch! Truly very inspirational!
“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”
- Elon Musk
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