And the winner is….

WOW – we had more people vote that we could have ever imagined!  With close to 15,000 votes (yes – that is the right number, no typo!) we’re excited to announce that couple #4, Allison and Nick, are our winners!  They had an astonishing 6,216 votes!  Allison – please be sure to contact us at info{at}lndevents.com for more details.

Congrats to Allison and Nick – and a HUGE thank you to each of our 4 couples for participating in our giveaway!  Be sure to check your emails on Monday for a special offer from each of our vendors.

If you don’t remember their story, here it is again:

Couple #4 – Allison and Nick

Nick and I have been together for nearly 6 years and we truly have a great story. We are childhood friends and my earliest memory of him is ice skating with friends in elementary school and him pushing me down on the ice! Don’t worry, he is a perfect gentleman now

We were casual friends in high school and dated each others close friends. It wasn’t until college that we realized we were perfect for each other. I went to Michigan State and Nick was in Chicago at MacCormick College. For freshman year spring break, my girlfriend and I were too poor for a tropical vacation, so we went to Chicago for a long weekend and stayed with Nick and his roommates. That first night over drinks, everything changed for us. There was this intense attraction and it was like meeting each other for the first time. We began dating from then on and spent the remainder of freshman and sophomore year traveling back and forth to see each other. It was the most amazing time of our lives and we knew at that point we would be together forever.

Nick transferred to MSU junior year and it was wonderful to be in each others daily lives. We worked together, traveled together and were basically inseparable until graduation in 2007. That summer, I started my first “real” job but Nick wasn’t quite ready for that. Instead, he and his best friend biked (yes, on a bicycle!) across the country to raise money for cancer research. He and I both lost close friends in college to the disease and it was an amazing tribute to their lives. They returned in September 2007 with $5000 for the American Cancer Society and many crazy stories of their journey.

Nick and I moved in together that fall and were starting our lives-happy and full of love. On December 27, 2007, Nick’s older brother, Eric, died in a snowboarding accident in Oregon. We were together when we received the phone call from Nick’s dad, and I’ll never forget the pain in his eyes. The next week was a blur of family and friends, until finally everything was over. The strange silence that filled our lives after that was awful and Nick ended up moving to Ann Arbor to live with friends. I accepted a job in Orlando soon after and not only did we now have a huge emotional void in our relationship, we had a physical one as well.

We continued dating and I gave him the time and space he needed to heal with his family in Michigan. We saw each other once a month, and slowly mended our relationship. By summer 2009, we were back to where we used to be-happy and full of hope. Nick proposed on Christmas Day 2009 and told me he wanted to celebrate that time of year again by adding a joyous memory to the season. He is moving here Valentine’s Day weekend, and we are so excited to finally start our lives together. We are planning our wedding for fall of 2010. We are looking st several venues, but are leaning towards the Colony Club.

We would love your help in planning this celebration of our love. It will truly be an amazing day for us, as well as our families and friends that have stood by us through the darkest days of our life. It will also be a challenge to plan the wedding from across the country, but it gives us an excuse to come home to the ones we love. Thank you for your consideration!