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

For this week, Jennifer Stein of Destination I Do chose our Social Giveaway winners. Congratulations to all those who were selected, and thank you for sharing your personal stories! It has been so moving to hear how COVID-19 has affected each of you. We are proud to have you as our customers!

Cauriana Johnson

Hi there! I am Cauriana, my fiancé is Shawn! I understand there are many entries in this giveaway contest, I decided to enter because we are currently struggling to pay for our wedding! My fiancé is in his last year of grad school graduating in December. We are hoping to get married late October! As he is continuing in his studies, he is keeping up on paying for his past loans. We have been through many hardships as the school he is in has charged him for classes he hasn’t taken and refuse to refund him. It’s a hard journey we are on as we are also unable to see one another upon the circumstances of COVID-19 quarantining. I am trying to find for our wedding by saving what I receive from work. It is very hard to plan our wedding since we have to think about our future together: a home, necessities of living. We trust that the Lord will provide a job for him once he is done with school so we can begin our journey together (His classes finish mid October). Our budget for our whole wedding is 2,000 dollars which a typical wedding can cost 5,000+. It is also hard when the word wedding or bride gets slapped onto something like a photographer prices sky rocket lol. The dress I would like to get for our wedding regardless of winning the giveaway is the Azazie Melrose BG. I am very excited how well priced these dresses are and how absolutely gorgeous they look!! Thank you so much for your time hearing our story and we hope and pray that the Lord will provide this wedding dress for us! Thank you so much!

Kira Long

My fiancé and I got engaged on Valentine’s Day. The whole day was perfect – he sent flowers to my work, we went to dinner at our favorite local cider company, and the night ended with him proposing in our kitchen with our dogs by his side. 

We told our families and closest friends, but decided to wait to tell everyone else until our big trip to Australia this May. We found a lovely photographer in Australia and were planning on taking our engagement photos there. We were supposed to leave for our two week trip to Australia yesterday. Luckily, we were able to reschedule the trip to November and are hopeful that we will be able to go then. 

I have always wanted a small wedding or to elope. My fiancé likes the idea of a destination wedding. We decided a small, destination wedding would be the perfect way to include our families in our special day. Unfortunately, our wedding planning came to a halt just weeks after it started. Not only did COVID-19 ruin our travel plans this spring, but it has also taken the fun out of planning a destination wedding. We are finding it very draining to plan another trip that might get canceled due to travel restrictions and the wellbeing of our families. Planning a destination wedding in the midst of COVID-19 seems impossible. 

If our Australia trip works out in November we’ve talked about eloping while we’re there. It would be a trip of a lifetime. If we decide to elope we would plan a trip with our families to celebrate once it is safe to do so. 

It might not be the wedding we had planned in our heads, but we always make the best out of every situation. 

 

Carla Griego

Greetings,

I just recently came upon your generous giveaway and would love to enter my name if possible. 

We begin our story with a crashed wedding. When I met my fiancé Brian, I had recently been accepted into pilot training for the Air Force. I was on a family vacation and he was my cousin’s co-worker. On a casual meet up, we went to a fancy hotel to get drinks. Upon discovery of a hotel wedding, I convinced this man I barely knew to join the fun (cue the movie “Wedding Crashers”). We spent the evening dancing, making new friends, and personally wishing the couple our best. That night Brian shared with me his interest in forming a relationship. My response went something like this, “I’m in the military. I don’t know where I’ll be in the next few months or years. If you want to pursue me, then your future plans may be up in the air.” Brian was willing to pursue me. We continued to date and flash forward two years later (to the day), Brian proposed at the very hotel we crashed the wedding. We will now be getting married in the same ballroom of our first date.

When we got engaged we knew that planning a wedding would be difficult. Just a few months after we were engaged, I got stationed away from home for a year long assignment. We knew the military would make our engagement tough. However, no one could have predicted how COVID-19 would add to this difficulty. With DOD restrictions I am unable to leave my local area. In addition, Brian is unable to come to my base. Being gifted a dress from Azazie would be the greatest blessing. I had originally planned to travel home on May 22nd (Memorial Day weekend) so that I could complete some wedding preparation. However, due to military restrictions this will not be possible. Though I would love to be an engaged couple planning my wedding quarantined with my loved one, I know that being together right now is not possible. I am proud to serve and know that my current situation will be best for our family in the future. I know that my wedding planning must come secondary to my training. However, I am confident that even through restrictions we will persevere. As you all so eloquently stated, “Love is Not Cancelled”! 

Thank you for your consideration in my story.

 

Brooke Young

Hi, my name is Joe, and I am writing you on behalf of my little sister, Brooke Young.  Although Brooke would feel comfortable sharing her story herself, she is not aware that I am telling it for her as I think it would be even more amazing if she received one of your wedding dresses as a surprise among all the disruption Covid-19 is causing in the world she lives in today.  That said, this is her story…

Brooke has been with her fiance, Anthony, for over two decades.  So, they have been together for a while.  Knowing my sister, she has always dreamed of getting married; however, as time passed, many believed (me included) that day may never come.  Despite having three children together, buying a house together and donating her kidney so that Anthony may receive one in return, no engagement.

See Anthony had a condition that required daily dialysis, and he was in need of a new kidney.  After being matched with his mother, he received one of her kidneys; however, that kidney failed, and Anthony was back on dialysis.  Without any other familial options, Anthony went on the transplant waitlist, but the likelihood of finding a match seemed slimmer each passing day.  That is when Anthony was presented with paired kidney exchange (kidney swap) as an option.  If someone with a kidney incompatible with him would donate a kidney on his behalf, the doctor could try to pair Anthony and his donor up with another donor/recipient pair and exchange kidneys.  My sister immediately volunteered, which should have been no surprise, but I was still taken aback.

How could she make such a sacrifice when they hadn’t even committed to the sacrament of matrimony?  But Brooke agreed to the kidney swap unconditionally for the hope that the man she loved, the man she built a family and a home with could live a “normal” life regardless of whether it meant doing so as husband and wife or not.

Fast forward, now with the surgery in the past and accepting the fact that my baby sister would never get married, it was a pleasant surprise when Anthony popped the question this past February (2020) and Brooke accepted.  It was finally going to happen.  Brooke was going to have her wedding day!  Ambitiously wanting to get married this summer, they began planning their wedding.  Then Covid-19 happened.  Wedding postponed.  Because of his medical history, it was not safe for Anthony to continue working.  Because he was in a higher risk group, Brooke could not afford to go to work as a U.S. postal service employee either since her job increased the chances that she could come in contact with the virus, and she could not afford to bring Covid-19 back into their home given Anthony’s health.

Needing to take care of their family while both are out of work, including putting their oldest child through college, Brooke and Anthony realized that not only were they going to have to push the wedding back but also they were not going to be able to have the wedding they dreamed of.  Sacrifices would have to be made.  Location, venue, wedding size, wedding dress… just a few of many things that would have to be altered, downsized, reconsidered.  Although I imagine Brooke would accept getting married at the courthouse in a pair of jeans, after all making sacrifices has been a part of her journey, I cannot stop thinking that it would be truly amazing if she were wearing one of Azazie’s beautiful wedding dresses on her wedding day.  That said, I ask that Azazie surprise my sister by granting her a free Azazie wedding gown… for she would be forever grateful.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

 

Sheron So

Thank you for offering such an amazing giveaway. This opportunity means the world to so many brides out there.

I am fortunate I have not had to move my wedding date yet. For me, COVID has been tough because I have been unable to go dress shopping with my mother. She is a diabetic and two-time kidney transplant patient. This means when the stay-home orders are lifted, it will still be too dangerous for my mother to go outside. I have been a hopeless romantic for years and I always dreamed of choosing my dress with my mother.

My aunts in New Zealand were planning on surprising my mother in time for my wedding. They have not seen each other in more than 10 years. With the travel ban, we’re thinking this may be cancelled as well. My fiancé and I are extremely family oriented and it breaks our heart knowing our family may not be able to attend.

In addition, my fiancé is a front-line healthcare worker. He has been working tirelessly for 13+ hours daily to get people quarantined and tested. With all of the extra hours and consistent flow of new cases, eating dinner in his car is the only time he has to himself. Given this, I haven’t seen my fiancé in several months.

Today, we’re all staying hopeful and grateful for everything we already have.

 

Mabel Chan

I hope the giveaway hasn’t ended yet!! I’m a surgery resident physician in one of the busiest hospitals in the pandemic epicenter, New York City. I have been working in the ED, ICU and stepdown COVID units in the past month, which to say the least, has been overwhelming. We have had patients literally everywhere lining hallways, outside tents, doubling even tripling rooms. It has been pretty draining to work with critically sick patients and their families who are scared, but unable to visit. The sheer number of death and codes that I have witnessed has been anxiety inducing. But at the end of the day, taking care of patients and their families is also my favorite job. It is what keeps me alive and what keeps me motivated!

Even if the work has been grueling, the effort of our staff and colleagues responding to the COVID-19 crises have been awe-inspiring. As we weather this storm unlike any in our history, we may have seen the worst of human condition, but the best of humanity 🙂

As a bride to be, I have yet to try on a single dress, because I was not able to get to any stores before the city shut down. I wish I could stay excited about my upcoming wedding, but I haven’t had the energy to most days. I want to thank you for your generosity and your gift to all healthcare workers who will be a bride like me!

Each of these deserving brides have won an Azazie Bridal Gown of their choosing. Which dress would you pick?

Azazie Melrose

Azazie Saskia

Azazie Dolores