It wasn’t love at first sight, it was hardly even like at first sight. 

If you ask Elizabeth Wampler what she felt when she first saw her future husband — she might say confusion, sadness or unfounded assumptions. Feelings, she says, now more than 30 years later, she was wrong about “on all counts.”

At the time, she had just moved to Coronado, California living on her own for the first time at 29, when her then-roommate suggested Elizabeth take a ride with her. 

She was picking up Stephen Wampler, an environmental engineer who was in a wheelchair and had cerebral palsy. 

“I didn’t know the extent of his disability,” Elizabeth, 60, told CBS News. “I pictured him in a wheelchair racer and being semi-ambulatory. I didn’t see the speech impediment coming.”

They picked him up and she was taken aback because Stephen wore a beautiful suit. 

“And tie,” Stephen, 56, piped up. 

“And my first thought was that he was just beautiful,” said Elizabeth. “I almost started crying. I instantly just felt sorry for him and I made a bunch of assumptions.”

Stephen said the ride was so awkward he thought the entire time, “What’s her deal?” The ride ended with them thinking they might not see each other again.

But life kept throwing them together. 

“It felt completely impossible”

Roughly 1 million people in the United States have cerebral palsy, according to the Cerebral Palsy Alliance Research Foundation. Cerebral palsy affects a person’s ability to move and maintain balance and posture —  each person reacts differently to the disorder and there is no known cure. Stephen, the oldest of five siblings, was determined to live life as normally as possible. 

He attended mainstream public schools after his family moved to California from Illinois.

He studied environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis. When he met Elizabeth, Stephen was working in San Diego dating a bird trainer at Seaworld and had just bought a new condo, he said. After their initial meeting, Elizabeth and Stephen ran into each other three to four other times at various events such as dinner parties.

Elizabeth said at these events she saw how she was the only person treating him oddly and slowly she started to get used to him and began to realize she didn’t need to treat him differently.

After about four months of running into each other Stephen said “I asked her out.” She went to his house as a platonic friend, Elizabeth said but by the time she left things had changed. 

“I was very confused because it still felt ‘completely impossible’ but he was fabulous,” said Elizabeth. 

“It was game on for me,” said Stephen.

They started to date. His family was very supportive — but there was some initial opposition from hers. Her father had died just before she met Stephen and her mother was convinced in her grief, her daughter wanted to take care of Stephen.

Elizabeth said she knew she had to be with him and figure it out. She was scared though, and said when they were far enough in their relationship she would ask, “How are you going to hold a baby?

Stephen would answer, “I don’t know but I’m not the least bit worried about it – we will figure it out.”

Not just better, but extraordinary

Putting fears aside Elizabeth and Stephen married on July 3, 1995, in front of 350 family and friends. 

“We both believe our lives would have been really different without finding each other,” Elizabeth said.

The couple believes many things only came to fruition because they met and married each other. 

“Many, many remarkable things have happened,” Elizabeth said.

The pair successfully established the Stephen J. Wampler Foundation in 2004 and opened Camp Wamp, a summer camp for children with physical disabilities. The first summer the camp hosted 24 children, and in the years since they’ve sponsored more 1,250 children at the camp. 

In 2010 Stephen Wampler decided to push the limits to raise awareness of disabled people and became the first person with Cerebral Palsy to climb Yosemite’s El Capitan. The ascent took him six days and 20,000 pull-ups to reach the top of the 3,000-foot rock.

The couple had two children, a boy, and a girl, now 24 and 25 years old, living their own fulfilling lives, their parents said. 

Elizabeth said their children grew up enveloped in kindness and protection and they were able to take the ease of their childhood with them. She said they know their dad is disabled but don’t treat him as such.

“They don’t give their dad an inch,” she said, while Stephen said, “They keep it real.”

Ten years from now the pair hopes they’ll be grandparents.

“Everything I thought would be hard turned out to be not only so much better -— but extraordinary,” said Elizabeth. “We’ve had an extraordinary experience.”