BY ROBYN SIDERSKY

In his new house in Stafford County, Army Sgt. Jude Recendez got down on one prosthetic knee and asked his wife, Kristine, to marry him again.

She had been expecting a bit of a ceremony for the "opening" of their new home.

She knew friends would be there to share the moment.

But the proposal: That was a shocker.

Two years ago, after Jude was injured in combat and had to spend time at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington recovering, the couple decided to use the money they had saved for their dream wedding to move to the East Coast so Jude could be closer to the medical center.

That meant the couple's plans for a dream wedding were gone.

They had a quick civil courthouse wedding, then Jude spent a year recovering at Walter Reed after both his legs were amputated. While he was serving in Iraq, Jude's vehicle was blown up by an IED.

The wedding the couple had planned in California, surrounded by friends and family, would never happen.

Until yesterday.

That's when Jude surprised Kristine with the fairy-tale wedding she never got. The ceremony was arranged by the Fredericksburg chapter of Blue Star Mothers of Virginia.

On the front lawn of their new home, the couple renewed their vows surrounded by longtime friends, family and some newer friends from the Fredericksburg area.

A few months ago, the Recendezes learned that Homes for Our Troops, a Taunton, Mass.-based nonprofit, would build for them a new, specially adapted home in Stafford.

The couple have been living in Arlington and will move into their new home Thursday.

After the conclusion of a ceremony to present the keys to the new house, the couple toured their new home.

The tour ended in the bedroom, where Kristine's wedding dress hung and a team of stylists hid in the bathroom. It was then that Jude went to his knee and told Kristine that her dream wedding was to come true.

"I knew we had to do something extra special for them," said Nancy Kearney, a member of Blue Star Mothers of Virginia.

For months, Kearney and Jude sneaked around, planning the wedding without breathing a word to Kristine.