Love Is Not Cancelled | Congrats to This Week’s Giveaway Winners!

After receiving many wonderful entires, we are ecstatic to announce six more winners of our Social Media Giveaway! In the midst of a worldwide pandemic, it is our pleasure to provide these brides-to-be with a free Azazie wedding gown of their choice. Here are their stories:

Sara Zargham

My name is Sara Zargham and I’m a nurse at the children’s hospital here in Orange County CA! I’m supposed to be getting married this October, unsure if that’s happening yet though. My bridesmaids have been looking at dresses from Azazie and love them.

I’m entering the bridal giveaway for a couple reasons! First and foremost, this would be so cool and would really help with finances. With this pandemic, we’ve been called off a lot from work because pediatric hospitals aren’t as crowded as adult ones. We want to have our dream wedding in Palm Springs but also want to make sure family and friends feel safe coming from the East Coast.

Second-this would mean so much! If we decide to elope prior, with grandparents and family as time is precious, a bridal gown would be absolutely a dream come true. I met my fiancé at a bar in college 4 years ago! He proposed last October in Hawaii with a size 9 RING YIKES!! He tried to make a super surprise so he measured it off of a thumb ring in my jewelry box I never wore. Needless to say it was so thoughtful and he was so precious for thinking of me!

Anyway, thanks so much for letting me ramble and taking the time to get to know me! Winning this would be a dream come true and I’m truly so appreciative 🙂

Johanna Tappen

COVID-19 has monumentally impacted my engagement and wedding planning with my fiance, Maxx.  I am a frontline medical worker in NYC.  All planning has had to be put on pause since I am an essential worker in a cancer hospital, in an hard hit urban epicenter of this crisis.  It has impacted our ability to celebrate our new engagement with friends and family, in light of precautions to keep our families and friends safe.  

I work as a clinical social worker extending mental health support and counseling services to cancer patients, their family caregivers, and fellow health care workers deeply impacted by the Covid -19 crisis.  I love my job, and it is a privilege to work alongside such compassionate and selfless individuals during this challenging and fear-inducing time, My role has shifted dramatically due to the chronic traumatic stress on healthcare personnel during this pandemic. 

Maxx supports me every single day with the stress and emotional toll of my job as a hospital worker  Maxx is patient, selfless, kind, devoted, driven professionally, and yet always has made me feel like his priority in big and small ways over our two years together, and even more so over the last two months of this pandemic He too, as as entrepreneur, has been impacted professionally by the economic shut down.  This would mean the absolute world to us.  He loves me unconditionally and challenges me to be a better version of myself, not only for others, but for myself.  He keeps me grounded and I love him so much.  I am so excited to spend the rest of my life with such an amazing man and compassionate, funny, and loving human being.  

Please let me know if you need any further information from me, hoping to hear from you.  Thank you for your time and consideration of my application.  I appreciate your thoughtfulness, and even the opportunity to enter, it has helped me refocus on our relationship and future wedding.

Sabrina Kwok

First and foremost, thank you for hosting the bridal gown giveaway throughout the month of May. It is going to be such a relief for brides-to-be like myself during these unprecedented times. I have been following you on Instagram ever since I got engaged to my high school sweetheart over Labor Day weekend last year. For the longest time I did not enter any of your giveaways because I did not think I could win. I kept following you on Instagram because your dresses are just so gorgeous. After watching your stories and announcements about the winners, I thought, what’s there to lose?! So, here’s to a new perspective and hope!

Our wedding is set on Sunday, December 20, 2020 (one day after our 12 year anniversary!) in Pasadena, CA. Although our wedding day is still months away, my fiancé and I have already been receiving inquiries from friends and family about postponement. We have high hopes that Los Angeles County will lift its Stay At Home order so that we could keep our wedding day on the same day. One of my main concerns is the wedding dress. Since all the wedding dress boutiques are closed, I’m not sure how I will find my dream dress in time. As a social worker, I was always busy with my caseload and I kept telling myself that I still had months to shop for a dress. With this ongoing pandemic, I might not have much time left to shop for my dream dress. I hope that my wedding dress will not be the reason that I have to postpone my wedding! Winning this wedding dress giveaway from Azazie will be one less thing for me to stress about. I hope you select me as one of your winners as I am definitely okay with you sharing my story with the Azazie community. Thank you so much for reading this long email entry and I hope to hear from you soon!

Shreya Amin

I’m a medical resident currently working in Danbury hospital. I’ve been working in covid ICU since the past 2 months for 16+hrs a day. Me and my fiancé are both medical resident who meet at the hospital 2 years ago and feel in love instantly. We got engaged last year in nov and were supposed to get married this May. Instead, our wedding was cancelled due to the pandemic. However this didn’t affect us as we had promised each other that this may he’ll be mine and I his. So despite the pandemic we got married in a civil ceremony last week. I got married to the love of my life, after my 30 hrs overnight ICU shift. I always envisioned wearing a nice white gown walking down the aisle with my dad by my side, however on my wedding day I wore the only 1 red dress I had, and it was just me and him without our family. My family has been devastated as due to me currently working in covid ICU I have been avoiding to visit/celebrates my wedding with them in fear of infecting them as a asymtopmatic carrier. I hope that one day once this pandemic is over my dream of wearing a white gown and walking down the aisle with my family by my side is still possible. I would love to become a bride again and marry the love of my life again. 

Here was my pandemic wedding photo. 

And I’m ok with you guys sharing this story. Win or no win. I’m sure many healthcare providers have had to Make such sacrifices. I’d love for them to know they are not alone.

Alyce Jorgensen

My fiancé and I both work as law enforcement officers in San Diego.  We met on the job when I first started almost 3 years ago.  We were on the same squad and my fiancé was interested.  Very interested.  I tried to friend zone him immediately, but he wore me down with good wine, Chipotle and ice cream.  What girl doesn’t want wine and ice cream?!

Fast forward-we got engaged in February 2019 and immediately started planning our dream day.  The wedding was to be at a winery just north of Napa with the reception in my parents backyard in June.  Nothing extravagant.  A backyard bash with an open bar and fried chicken.  We had everything set and then the pandemic struck.

We had to cancel the wedding in Northern California, and as of now still haven’t received all of our deposits back.  Most of our vendors have been great, and we’ve received a lot of our money back.  We still have yet to hear from some and are out the money. 

Getting married this year is incredibly important to us, mostly because we want to start a family and we’re trying to time it with the most suitable times in our (my) career.  I can’t be pregnant and out chasing bad guys! 

Right now we are not allowed to use any vacation time to ensure our staffing with our department is adequate to serve our communities.  We are working 6 days a week to make up for the loss of money, and hopefully plan our new day.

We are working to reschedule our new date for October this year in San Diego. 

I am exhausted, sad, overwhelmed, and gut-wrenchingly praying this pandemic ends so we can celebrate our love this year.  Like every bride, I just want to have my day 🙂

Thank you for doing this give-away!  Cancelling bachelor/bachelorette parties and the wedding has been so difficult.  I know I’m not alone in feeling that way.

Megan Ziegler

My name is Megan Ziegler. My fiancé (Andy) and I will be getting married on August 28, 2020!! However, we are both physical therapists, and we are working in ICUs caring for COVID patients currently. 

As our wedding day approaches, we have decided that no matter what the size of our wedding, we will be getting married (because we cannot wait!!). However, given that we will likely still be caring for COVID patients in August, the decision to postpone is feeling more and more obvious to keep our loved ones safe even if social distancing laws are lifted. 

I cannot wait to marry the love of my life, and my best friend. I have started to envision what a smaller ceremony can look like and looking at some of your midi wedding dresses online has me excited! I would be so excited to be chosen for a free gown, but even if I’m not chosen, I cannot WAIT to hear all of the bride’s stories that are chosen! This is a tough time to be a bride, and we all need to be celebrated. Thanks for bringing some joy to the bridal community! 

I hope your team stays healthy and safe. 

 

Thank you to everyone who shared their story! We will have more stories to come on the Azazie Blog next Friday!