There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when Jansen Young finally walked down the aisle at her dream football stadium venue with her first love’s mother sobbing among the guests.
But it was not just the happiness of the occasion that caused so many tears.
Jansen, 31, was still in mourning after her previous partner Jonathan Blunk was shot dead while shielding her from the bullets sent flying during one of America’s worst gun massacres.
In Jonathan’s place at the wedding was Daniel Thompson, who comforted Jansen in the months that followed the cinema shooting in Aurora, Colorado, on July 20, 2012.
Jansen says her husband has come to accept that she still has such strong feelings for Jonathan, who was killed aged 26, that she wanted his mum Dawna Nygaard and his prized 1986 Yamaha motorbike at their wedding.
Now, 10 years on from the mass shooting, Jansen says: “I know I have picked the right guy because who else would not feel threatened by me being in love with two men?
“Daniel has cried and mourned with me and I’ve seen him shed tears as he thanked Jon for saving my life. He was happy to have Jon’s motorcycle next to us when we said our vows and we also gave a bouquet of flowers to his mum before the ceremony started.”
She adds: “I fell so hard for Jon when we met and he was my first proper boyfriend. We talked about getting married all the time and we both wanted to have the ceremony at a football stadium.
“In the end, I realised that dream with Daniel, but I truly feel that Jon blesses our marriage. Jon was a hero and I will say this repeatedly – the greatest man I ever knew died.”
The pair had a whirlwind romance. Veterinary worker Jansen had moved from Salt Lake City in Utah to the city of Aurora, just outside Denver, to study when she was 18.
She met dad-of-two Jonathan in October 2011 at the 16th Street mall where he was a security guard.
She says: “I saw him in his security outfit and said, ‘I need to meet that guy’.
“The next day, I went straight to the mall after I finished work and I sat there all day but I couldn’t find the courage to speak to him.
“After about five hours, I went over with a piece of paper with my phone number and the words ‘Call me’ on it.
“I handed it to him without saying a word and walked out and he texted me that night.
“Our first date was to the cinema and for the whole time we were together we loved watching movies.
“Jon was so handsome, a hard 10 and he was an adventure for me.
“We moved in together after three weeks. I used to always call him ‘Tall, dark and handsome’, and say, ‘I don’t want to go to bed because that means I have to stop spending time with you’.
“He was really romantic and would bring me gifts and flowers all the time and leave little love notes in my lunchbox.”
Jansen and Jonathan had gone to watch a film when tragedy struck
Deranged James Holmes, now 34, entered theatre nine of the Century cinema half an hour into the midnight premiere of Batman film The Dark Knight Rises.
Holmes was dressed head to toe in protective clothing including a ballistic helmet, tactical gloves, a groin protector and a gas mask.
He was blasting techno music through a pair of headphones.
Many of the moviegoers thought he was in costume.
Some people later assumed he had been aping Batman’s arch-enemy the Joker because he had dyed his hair red. Standing next to the screen, Holmes threw a tear gas grenade into the audience before firing 76 shots randomly – six from a shotgun, 65 from a semi-automatic rifle, and five from a handgun.
Twelve people were murdered, the youngest was aged six.
There were a further 70 people injured, some very seriously.
“When the gas canister flipped over our heads I thought, ‘Is someone throwing fireworks?’,” Jansen recalls. “It landed behind us and all the people over there began screaming. That’s when the first bangs started.
“Jon pushed me down and said, ‘Get down and stay down’.
“I popped my head over the seat and said, ‘Why?’. He pushed me down again and gave me one final push before I didn’t feel his hands again.
“I felt hot liquid dropping and what felt like gravel being thrown at me. I thought, ‘This is it – the moment I die’.
“I was down there for about 10 minutes but it felt like a lifetime.
“When the shooting subsided, I slid out and Jon was there with his eyes closed. He looked like an angel.
“He wasn’t bleeding. I found out it was because he didn’t have an exit wound.
“He was shot in the back and the bullet went straight through his heart and lodged in his chest. Jon is a hero and if it wasn’t for him taking that bullet for me, I wouldn’t be alive. I was shown a photo of our seats and they were riddled with holes. Everyone around us was shot and killed or injured.”
Astonishingly, four years after the shooting, Jansen bought the same type of gun that was used to kill Jonathan.
“I believe in the right to own and carry a gun, so much so that I now own my own gun,” she says.
“We went to a gun store in 2016, just after the Orlando shooting, and I ended up buying a semi-automatic AR15, which is the exact gun Holmes used.
“This was part of my journey. I now own the same gun that killed my boyfriend. It’s way too easy to buy a gun in the US.”
She reveals she reached out to Holmes’ parents at his trial in 2015 when he was found guilty of the murders and given 12 life sentences without parole.
Jansen says: “On the very last day I waited outside court to say sorry because they lost a son too. His mum gave me a hug and said, ‘I’m sorry too’, and we cried. It gave me such a place for forgiveness. I don’t hate Holmes, I feel nothing – total indifference.”
Jansen was comforted by her old school friend Daniel, now 33, when she headed back to Utah for Christmas.
He has helped her through the severe post-traumatic stress disorder she suffered and every milestone, including returning to the cinema for the first time.
They wed on September 20, 2017, at the Rio Tinto Stadium – home of top-flight footie team Real Salt Lake – close to where she was raised in Salt Lake City. They now live in Los Angeles, California.
Jansen is still close to Jon’s mum Dawna, 57, from Kansas, and will mark the 10-year anniversary by attaching a keepsake to his picture in the mall where he worked – like she does every year.
And, as she continues to rebuild her life, she is in no doubt that Jonathan felt the same as she did.
“After the shooting, the police gave me Jon’s wallet in a little evidence bag,” she says. “Inside it was the note I gave him with my phone number. He had kept it for all that time.”
