This Bride-To-Be Didn’t know Whether Her Teenage Dog Would Live To See Her Wedding. Amazing.

A 15 year-old black lab names Charlie Bear managed to fight off a brain tumor long enough to see his human get married.

Jennifer Dziuvenis / Via Instagram: @jendzphotography   Kelly O'Connell, Charlie Bear's owner, got Charlie when he was three months old. He had been abandoned outside of a grocery store, left in a shopping cart. O'Connell had been working at a rescue shelter while studying to be a veterinarian, and when she saw Charlie she just knew they would be lifelong companions, “I wasn’t looking for a dog,” Kelly told BuzzFeed News. “I was 19, still living with my parents and going to college. It was the worst time in my life to even attempt to get a dog. “He came in, and I was like, ‘Yup. I’m taking this puppy home,’” said O'Connell. Kelly and Charlie became best friends, and the two packed up and moved together to Colorado to New York. Jennifer Dziuvenis / Via Instagram: @jendzphotography   O'Connell met her partner, another veterinarian, James Garvin, and again, she just knew. Kelly moved in with James and his two sons. “Charlie got whatever he wanted,” O’Connell said. “But I couldn’t offer him a family. As soon as I met James and the boys, it was the last thing that I could give him. We were one big happy family.” Charlie's brain tumor was diagnosed after he had had a seizure during a walk last year. His situation was dire. In the week leading up to the wedding, Charlie had five seizures, and it appeared thatwas in quite a bit of pain. O’Connell and Garvin decided that they would make arrangements for him to be put to sleep. Then the soon-to-be-married couple noticed something in the final days before the wedding: Charlie was no longer having seizures, and “seemed like a whole new dog,” O’Connell said. It seemed like CHarlie might just make it to their wedding day. “I just thought, I want him to see this,” Kelly said.

Kelly and James were married on September 1st, with Charlie and their other dogs by their side.

Jennifer Dziuvenis / Via Instagram: @jendzphotography

Kelly said that she “immediately broke down” when Charlie Bear walked down the aisle to her. “James and I just grabbed onto him, and we just kept saying, ‘You made it, buddy, you made it.’” After walking up the aisle, Charlie Bear was too tired to make the return trip, so Kelly's sister Katie picked up all 80 pounds of Charlie and carried him back. Jennifer Dziuvenis / Via Instagram: @jendzphotography

“It hit home for me when I saw my sister carrying him back down the aisle,” O’Connell said. “That this was it, we’re now talking days.” Jennifer Dziuvenis, the event's photographer, told BuzzFeed News that “everybody started bawling” when Charlie was carried away. Jennifer Dziuvenis / Via Instagram: @jendzphotography

“I heard Katie say, ‘Charlie, I can’t leave you behind,’ before she scooped him up,” said Dziuvenis. “I think he was really happy to be there,” she said. “I mean, obviously he didn’t understand what was happening, but this is his family.” Kelly said that she could just “see it in his eyes” that her beloved Charlie held on just to make it to the wedding. Jennifer Dziuvenis / Via Instagram: @jendzphotography

“I see his face in these pictures how happy he looked,” she said. “He’s literally smiling.” “He wasn’t suffering — he was having the time of his life,” she said. “His body was failing him, but he was happy.” A little over a week later, Charlie was put to sleep. Jennifer Dziuvenis / Via Instagram: @jendzphotography

He was surrounded by his family at home, next to the fireplace. Kelly said that the fact that Charlie was there for her wedding, and that she has photos to remember the moment, “means the world.” “It was a phenomenal moment,” she said. “It was a phenomenal 15 years. That’s for sure.” Jennifer Dziuvenis / Via Instagram: @jendzphotography     (via Washington Post and Buzzfeed) Please SHARE this with your friends.

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