The wedding day is filled with special father-daughter moments, like the walk down the aisle to the father-daughter dance. That's why we were so touched to hear about how four police officers came together to support Kirsten, the daughter of Piece County Deputy Sheriff Kent Mundell, who was killed in the line of duty in 2009 while responding to a domestic dispute.
"Any wedding is a big deal, and not having my dad there was a lot harder for all of us," Kirsten told KOMO News.
She honored her father in her wedding-day attire (the blue ribbon symbolizes law enforcement).
During the ceremony, the chair that would've been his was left empty as a memorial.
She asked a close family friend and fellow law enforcement officer, Seattle Police Detective Don Jones, to walk her down the aisle.
But it was the traditional father-daughter dance that moved everyone to tears; Kirsten started off the dance with Jones before being surprised by her father's close friends and fellow members of the law enforcement community.
"All of a sudden, someone taps me on the shoulder and says, 'Can I cut in?' and I was shocked. I didn't know how to react, how to respond," she told KOMO News. "He said, 'There's a whole line of us,' and right as he said that is when the next officer cut in, and I just broke down."
"There wasn't a dry eye in the room. I mean, the photographer was crying at that point. Everybody was crying, it was very moving," Jones told KOMO News.
"I think it's easy to forget that officers are real people who put their lives on the line — literally, even getting coffee in a coffee shop — for all of us: people they do not even know. I am so touched to see that the LEO [law enforcement officer] family takes care of each other," the photographer, Angela Lyons, wrote on Facebook.
—Kristen Klein
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