Bride of the Year 2007 - Winner

Our Winner

I first discovered True Bride from a friend of mine who found the site an extremely helpful resource to plan and make her perfect day a reality. I discovered the Bride of the Year competition after voting for her as she had also entered earlier on. I thought it was a great way to relive your wedding day and feel like a princess again.

I asked all of my family, friends, wedding suppliers and work colleagues to vote for me and to pass the details onto all of their friends; I guess it just grew from there. I also passed the details throughout my forum and all the members voted and passed the details onto everyone they knew.

I was also fortunate enough to meet many new people with whom I have made new friends. They thought it was a terrific opportunity to enter a long standing competition held by a respected website. Everyone was behind me one hundred percent, without their understanding and support I would not have believed I could have been considered to be a finalist let alone having the proud opportunity to be the lucky winner.

When I received the phone call, I honestly thought someone was playing a prank on me I just couldn’t believe it! At first I was absolutely stunned! Then screamed with joy and cried with happiness, I have never been lucky enough to win anything before which made it overwhelmingly special, then the shock set in I just couldn’t believe I had been so lucky. I thank everyone who has made this possible.

I shared the news with my husband first (he actually answered the phone) and then I called my family who were overjoyed that a run of bad luck lately had been lifted by such fantastic news.

After I finished running around the house screaming, my husband and I started jumping around holding hands in circles like a couple of crazy kids. Everyone at work is over the moon for me and all think it’s absolutely wonderful!

With the prize money, I think we would like to go and visit Chad’s parents in Qld (who I only met the day before the wedding) and Chad has only had the chance to see them a few times in the last 10 years. It will also double as a second honeymoon (long story but the original honeymoon was a disaster), we have always promised ourselves that we would have a proper honeymoon. Now thanks to True Bride and all our family, friends and people who supported me we can now make this dream come true.

I would like to thank True Bride for giving me the opportunity to take part in this competition and I would also like to express a huge thank you, to everyone that voted and supported me through planning my own wedding and also the whole experience of this competition. If it wasn’t for everyone taking the time to vote for me I would not be here, so thank you everyone. It means the world to me!

Finally I would also like to congratulate all the other brides who entered the competition and wish all new brides good luck in the future.

The Romance

I posted my details on a website looking for people to chat to. I received a message from Chad saying he was looking for friends and hoped we could chat sometime. He looked like a nice guy so I replied back saying that would be nice.

A week later I was planning a night out and invited Chad. I got a text just before midnight saying that he was outside the club, I was inside and decided to go outside and meet him, when I walked out of the club I noticed a very gorgeous guy standing outside the entrance, as I was walked up I asked him "Are you the guy I’m looking for?" to which he replied "I just might be".

We spent most of the night outside chatting, we really seemed to connect and I really enjoyed his company. Early morning he mentioned driving me home, I wanted to spend that extra bit of time with him so agreed! The drive home was one of the longest drives ever and to be honest I didn't want the night to end! When we arrived at my place I offered to lend him some movies that he hadn't seen so we were guaranteed of seeing each other again.

A few hours later I received a text saying "Just got home, OK without sounding like some kind of freak considering I’ve known you for 1 night – I really like you. Your very pretty, great company and have a heart of gold. I think we’ll get along great. Please tell me if I’m out of line by saying that!" Well this just made my heart jump in my chest and I wanted to scream!! So much so that I spent 3 hours walking my dog around the neighbourhood!

I moved into his place within the month and two months later we had gotten a place together!

We had talked about getting engaged about 2 weeks after we met. Chad also mentioned that he told everyone the morning after the night that we met that he knew he was going to marry me! Honestly I must say it was really scary how quickly our relationship progressed but everything just felt so right, how could it be wrong?

Chad asked me to marry him overlooking Darling Harbour where we had spent most of our time the first night. It was the happiest night of my life!

The Planning

We decided on an intimate garden wedding in the Mountains on the last day of winter, with a small selection of our closest friends and family. We had always thought of the day as more of a get together with the bonus of us getting married.

We didn’t have a theme as such but decided on hot pink, turquoise and plum for our colours. I absolutely loved planning our wedding. Chad helped me decide on everything (except for the dress, of course) which made everything so easy and planning the day together bought us closer as a couple and made it feel that extra bit special.

Admittedly we did have some problems along the way and a few disasters leading up to and on the day (including a ruined cake which resulted in Chad running around the night before the wedding trying to find someone who could supply us with cupcakes and only then for my family to forget the cake stand) but I wouldn’t change a thing, those are the little things you can look back on and laugh about (though there were some tears shed at the time).

The best piece of advice I can give to other brides is not to stress about things too much, a lot of the things you won’t even notice on the day. It is the day you are marrying your soul mate, everything else is just icing on the cake! Also make sure you take a break from planning every now and then and spend quality time with your partner because it really can get too overwhelming at times!

Our Wedding Day

I awoke to the most gorgeous day. I had spent the night alone so I could reflect on everything while Chad spent the night with his parents, who had arrived the night before.

As I was getting ready and having my hair and makeup done, everyone commented on just how calm I was. I remember thinking how could I be nervous about something that feels so right?

I had a two hour trip to the gardens and it was the longest two hours of my life. The ceremony was supposed to start at 12.00 but I didn’t arrive until 12.40! When I arrived the nerves kicked in as everyone was fussing around trying to get the perfect shot of my arrival.

As I started walking down the aisle to the sound of bagpipes I just couldn’t wipe the smile of my face. I couldn’t believe that finally after all the effort that had been put into planning the day it had finally arrived. I felt so at ease standing beside Chad through the ceremony and it felt like it lasted a lifetime.

After the ceremony we had an afternoon tea in another part of the garden where we served a variety of finger foods and punches. While we spent time running around the gardens with our photographers getting some awesome shots, our guests had the opportunity to check out the gardens for themselves and everyone commented on just how beautiful they were.

Afterwards when our guests had left, we decided to do some location shots before the sun set. We found the perfect location on top of a cliff just as the sun was setting. Chad is scared of heights but managed to get out on the edge so we could get some photos and it was so worth it, we got some beautiful shots of us standing just in front of the sunset. It was a magical end to a perfect day!

Our wedding day was the best day of my life. It’s the day I married not only my soul mate but my best friend. We have been through a lot of challenges in the last 8 months and they have only bought us closer. I could not imagine my life without him!

Bride of the Year 2007 - Wedding Suppliers