See How Paralysed Father Was Able To Stand For Emotional Speech On Daughter's Wedding Day

Tear-jerker: Tetraplegic Irving Caplan delivered the speech at his daughter's wedding

A tetraplegic man thrilled his daughter by standing to make the father-of-the-bride speech at her wedding - thanks to a special robotic wedding suit.

Irving Caplan, 56, is confined to a wheelchair following a bicycle crash in Edgware, north London, in October 2012.

He left many guests at his daughter Joanne’s wedding in tears as he rose and walked across the hotel dancefloor to reach the microphone and give his speech.

Emotional: There wasn't a dry eye in the house after Caplan's speech

The IT consultant from Stanmore, north London, broke three vertebrae and was paralysed after colliding with a stationary lorry on his regular cycle into work.

He used a Rex Bionics exoskeleton suit controlled by a joystick, 29 microprocessors and 10 high-speed actuators at the wedding at Sopwell House, St Albans.

"I would have loved to walk Joanne down the aisle but that wasn’t possible," he said.

"But this was the next best thing and I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house. That was very important to me.

Technology: Irving was able to walk and then stand thanks to a Rex Bionics exoskeleton suit

“It is not the same when someone has to bend down - the wheelchair gets in the way.

"The speech would have been the same had I delivered it from the wheelchair but standing up I got the right perspective on the world - the one I had seen for most of my life.”