Survivor of deadly Connecticut home invasion remarries

The Connecticut doctor who survived a horrific home invasion that left his two daughters and wife dead remarried on Sunday.  

William Petit wed his girlfriend, 34-year-old photographer Christine Paluf, in Simsbury, Conn., and family spokesman Rick Healey told the Associated Press that about 300 people attended the ceremony. The couple had been seeing each other since the summer of 2011, People magazine reported, and they met while Paluf was volunteering for the Petit Family Foundation.

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It has been almost five years since the brutal 2007 attack on Petit and his family by Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes. The pair held the family hostage for hours before setting the house ablaze. Petit, who had been knocked out and locked in the basement, was able to escape. His wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 47, and daughters Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, were killed. Both Komisarjevsky and Hayes are currently on death row.

Story: Killer on death row: 'It's a very surreal experience'

After the tragedy, the Petit Family Foundation was established in memory of Hawke-Petit and the couple’s daughters. The foundation provides scholarships for young people, organizes fundraising efforts and has created a garden at the site of the former Petit home.

The family of Petit’s late wife gave the couple their blessings. According to People, the family met Paluf in September 2011, at a birthday party for Petit. When Cindy Hawke-Renn, the sister of Petit’s late wife, learned on New Year’s Eve that they were engaged, she said she was thrilled for the couple. She added that her sister would have been too. “She would have only wished the best for him,” Hawke-Renn said. “That’s just how she was.”

The nuptials have garnered words of support from people around the world on Twitter and Facebook. The Petit Family Foundation shared their words on social media, retweeting a user who said, “Best of luck to Dr. Petit and Christine Paluf today! May they have a lifetime of happiness and blessings together!”