It Is All About The Height

"It's my dream dress for my dream wedding for my dream guy," a gushing bride-to-be tells INSIDE EDITION. Tiffanie Didonato was literally swept off her feet following her handsome U.S. Marine dropped to one knee and proposed. Tiffanie, who lives outside of Boston, was born with a type of dwarfism known as Diastrophic Dysplasia. By the time she was 8-years-old Tiffanie had stopped expanding. She was only 3' 8". Then, she made the life changing decision to have limb lengthening surgery. The now blushing bride usually dreamed of living a regular life and getting married, but she wanted to walk down the aisle standing tall. So she made the difficult choice to undergo painful limb lengthening surgeries before her big day. Tiffanie began with her upper arms. "I couldn't reach the top of my head," she says. "My arms were too short." She pushed the limb lengthening boundaries by asking surgeon Dr. Erol Mortimer to make her 14" taller. "She was absolutely determined," the physician says. Explaining her decision, Tiffanie says, "I wasn't going to go through it for three or four inches. I was going to go the max if I could...14 inches." "It was excruciating," she says. Following snapping the bone in two, a device is attached that literally pulls the bone apart a millimeter at a time. According to Dr. Mortimer, "Bone is really a magical tissue. It can recreate itself." The bone heals and fills in the gap, literally making the bone longer. Amazingly, before stepping foot down the aisle for her dream wedding Tiffanie reached her goal of becoming 14" taller. Measuring herself subsequent to her mom Tiffany's still awestruck that she grew from 3' 8" to 4' 10". "I'm nonetheless small, I'm petite but I am not very small," she says with a glowing smile. Tiffanie is believed to possess lengthened her limbs greater than anyone on the planet, but the surgery is controversial. INSIDE EDITION spoke having a young man who knows the agony Tiffanie went through because he also had limb lengthening surgery but wished he had tried heel lifts. Akash Shukla hated being extremely short. "Being much less than five foot for any man is tough," he says. At 4' 11" he desperately wanted to be more than 5' tall. Akash struggled through his rehabilitation. However, taking a look at him these days 1 can see the big alter. As soon as concerning the exact same height as his mom, he now towers more than her at 5' 2". The majority of all, the engineering student in the New Jersey Institute of Technologies, who's written a book, Measure of a Man, says he's much more confident around girls on campus. There is no way to measure Tiffanie's happiness, her mom Robin is overjoyed. "Every parent usually wonders, but whenever you have somebody with some issues, some problems, it is a concern. This is just a parent's dream. My daughter's very pleased and she's going to become able to live her life the way she's always wanted to live." Tiffanie's proud father escorted her down the aisle to her waiting hero husband. Eric Gabriels is a decorated Marine, who served two tours of duty in Iraq. He and Tiffanie had been pen pals while he was overseas. The young serviceman calls his bride the most courageous women he's ever met. A Marine Honor Guard welcomed the newlyweds to their reception where the couple enjoyed time with family and friends. It's clear that Tiffanie has certainly reached new heights within the arms from the man she calls her knight in shining armor.