When Erik walked through the doors at my workplace, Mercy Ministries, I was completely caught off guard. He told me that the Charleston Area Visitors Bureau had called and we won the wedding giveaway. My heart starting beating so fast and I was thrilled to hear the news. It was such a relief. We had to hold out on all of our wedding planning during the contest so we didn’t have a great backup plan. We already knew that we wanted to get married in Charleston sometime in the summer of 2009 but most of the dates were already booked solid. So winning this contest was such a blessing and was better then anything I had ever imagined!  My entire workplace was cheering and clapping.

For the past month we tried to tell everyone about the contest and get people to vote. It was so great to see all the support we got from family, friends, and even complete strangers! We had no idea how many votes we received per day so I sent out daily e-mails, Facebook messages, and MySpace bulletins. On a United flight on the way to Houston, TX a flight attendant even announced the contest over the intercom to the entire flight. She had me pass out my business cards with the contest URL to every passenger on the plane. It was pretty hilarious. All of our hard work finally paid off. It was defiantly worth the work and the wait!

After hearing the good news I immediately called my parents and my sister, Jenna. They were all so supportive throughout the entire contest. My mom made posters and passed them out at Publix, the public library, my entire neighborhood and even to my old teachers from high school. My sister spent almost 2 hours everyday online, reminding people to vote. My dad had posters all around his workplace and had everyone in his family voting. I knew they were going to be ecstatic when they heard the results. They were so happy! My mom screamed and jumped around the house and Jenna announced the good news to all of her friends.

When the CVB announced the winners online, all of my friends were delighted. I received tons of phones calls and messages online congratulating me and Erik. Everyone is extremely excited about the wedding and getting the opportunity to visit Charleston in the spring. Now for the hard part…making the guest list!