CONGRATULATIONSAnnie Hage from SA,
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Annie's Competition Experience |
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I first saw the Bride of the Year competition advertised on various social media platforms during the lead up to our wedding last year. The more I saw it advertised, the more I began to think to myself, why not?! I’m going to have a crack! Irrespective of the fact that I have a bubbly extravert personality, putting myself out there, intentionally drawing attention to myself is something that is well and truly out of my comfort zone. Particularly something that if we are being honest involves ones image. The competition provided me with a new confidence as I would usually ‘worry myself out of entering’ or deter myself from doing/entering things like this. True Bride gave me the courage to ‘shed’ that ‘worry’, and I absolutely loved sharing our photos and Wedding story with True Bride readers and other participants.
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The competition absolutely helped me relive my wedding day. Simply by sharing our beautiful photos from the outstanding PaulMac, and the story of our day. The excitement and keeping tabs on the Bride of the Year competition certainly kept the ‘excitement’ and ‘freshly married’ feelings alive! When we told friends and family about the competition, they were extremely encouraging and had the opinion of ‘why not!!’ They really did support us and got onto the task of voing! I was absolutely amazed when I found out I had won! I knew I had an incredible amount of support behind me as us entrants had access to see the names and tallies of our votes. I could see that I had had an overwhelming amount of support from my local community and people I knew in other areas of SA. However, there were also a lot of names that I didn’t recognise, so that was incredibly lovely too!
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You would think the first person I would have told that I won would have been my husband! But as it happened, I received the phone call whilst I was at work. My year 10 history class were the first to find out and it was funny and really quite heart-warming! True Bride had phoned me during a lesson, so I initially missed the call. As this particular lesson was a long one, half way through I gave the students a quick ‘refresh break’. During this time, I noticed a voice message had been recently left on my phone. I quickly listened to the message that had been left, and although no details were given a huge smile teamed with a lot of nerves and butterflies quickly took over! Some of my students began to return from the break and immediately noticed my face, and were very eager to know what had happened (why I was grinning from ear to ear). I attempted to brush it off and said I may have some good news coming my way. What Miss, what Miss, they persisted! I said ‘a competition I entered ok, take your seats’, giving no more details. One student called out ‘the bride one?’ I said ‘maybe’ and attempted again to settle the group. Well, my little ‘cherubs’ showed great stubbornness and refused to ‘tune back in’ to my presentation until I had returned True Bride’s call. They were so frightened if I didn’t call back immediately, that someone else would win! Initially, I resisted however, they were very persuasive and I agreed on a quick call to let True Bride know that I have received the message and that I would call back after school. In our brief call, they informed me that I was the 2021 True Bride of the Year, and the students were cheering and it was such a warm and lovely feeling to experience that with them there! It was very unique as it showed the strong connection/relationships that I have with the students in their cheer and pure happiness for me, as their teacher this felt so incredibly rewarding and fulfilling.
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When my husband found out, he said “Knew you had it in the bag honey” – which was met with my reply “you’re crazy, as if… no one has it in the bag!” He then told me how proud he was of me for putting myself out there, and for my determination in the quest to get as many of the local community behind me as I could. He continued to reinforce the support behind me speaks volumes. I then told my mum, who was over the moon and was very excited to share the news with all of her friends. My family and friends were also very happy and excited for me as 2022 has been a challenging year thus far continuing our journey to have try and have a baby. I don’t have many or any ‘followers’ and although having 2 social media platforms I am very very old school at heart. However, of course I utilised social these platforms as a tool to network. I also spoke about it openly and regularly at work with colleagues, friends and people in my local community, eg my gym etc. I also had strong networking connections in Adelaide as I previously lived there for 12 years studying/working within various roles and I made and have maintained many friendships during that time that were more than happy to support and rally support for me. Initially when I entered the competition, I decided I would give it my best shot and it would be amazing to become one of the two finalists for my month (but inner-voice was also saying ‘dream on Annie!’) When I was named one of the two finalists for January it felt as if I had won already! After the news settled, I realised I now had a 1 in 22 chance in winning! I actually said to myself‘ Annie you actually have a really good chance at taking the title’. This is when I decided I was going to put everything I had into getting support behind in to getting the word out that I was a finalist! I was absolutely overwhelmed to discover that I more than doubled the votes I had received to be a January finalist! I remain so grateful for all of the beautiful people who ‘backed me’ and took the time to vote, and also get their family and friends behind me to. It was unreal to see so many names, it was really touching.
The prize money was wonderful to receive, but we decide not to splurge on ourselves. We were very spoilt and blessed with many wonderful wedding gifts and a little honeymoon that we took for 6 days, so we don’t feel the need to throw it towards anything and everything ‘just because’. We will be putting the prize money in the bank, as we have recently bought are currently on the quest to begin family and have our first child. Thanks again to True Bride for the opportunity to enter such a competition and allow us all in the opportunity to share our unique stories with each other! At the same time it also enables us the chance to share our experiences with our suppliers with other Australian Brides to be, hopefully helping the upcoming brides in their planning, and at the same time providing well-deserved recommendations for our suppliers I am thrilled to be crowned "Bride of the Year 2021"! |
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Wedding Suppliers used by Annie include:
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Wedding Photography : PaulMac Photography Wedding Music : Josh Phillips Music |
Wedding Cake : Absolutely Cake Wedding Dress : Jenny and Gerry's Bridal Centre |
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