we may not have money, but we are rich

When I was a kid, I took a field trip to a prestigious, gorgeous, foreboding building where really smart people did impressive stuff. I turned to a friend and said, "I'm going to work here someday." And I actually made that happen. At the end of my very last shift there, I emptied my drawer, packed up my nameplate, put on my pink coat and turned to leave the enormous open room in which everyone rolls up their sleeves and gets the job done every night. And these people I respect, a lot of whom I hadn't really had the chance to speak to, began to applaud. All the way until I made it out the door.

I can't express that feeling. I had seen them do that for people before, but only ones who I thought had been there for a long time. As a two-year contract person whose time was up, I never dreamed that I deserved such a send-off. It was an unexpected and touching moment that I will never forget.

Last week, nearly five years to the day Jon* and I found each other in the comments of Jazz's blog, I had another of those moments. After 31 straight days of being two impossibly pointy thorns in the side of everybody within reach/phone/Internet, begging for votes to help us into the top 50 in Crate&Barrel/Daily Candy's Ultimate Wedding Contest, we were humbled by the results.

Unfortunately, we didn't crack that dang Top 50. But I am not sad in the least. After the fraudulent votes (I guess we had three) were thrown out, we placed 70th with a total of 764 votes. AND THAT IS DAMN IMPRESSIVE, FOLKS, considering there were what I believe to be thousands of other entries to choose from. Scrolling through them all, I am so amazed at how far we got. Especially because we were up against competition with touching stories of cancer, service to city and country, sexual discrimination and paralysis. Sure, we have our share of troubles, but in the face of that stuff it's a wonder we had a chance at all. But we did have a chance! We even hovered between 60th and 70th place. And that is no small feat.


And we never could have done it without you.


So to every single one of you who:

a) took time out of your busy day to follow the links and vote for us
b) re-posted us on facebook or twitter or here or here or here or here or here or here**
c) put a note in your church bulletin
d) got us a shoutout on a sports radio talkshow in Mobile, AL (thanks, bro)
e) nagged your significant other/friends/parents/neighbors
f) tried to incentivize voting to your students/others under your command
g) received harassing faxes/phonecalls/letters/emails/lectures from my mother
h) voted from (cough)made(cough) more than one email address
i) translated our story into other languages for your family in other countries to vote
j) had all your coworkers vote even though they don't know us
k) badgered celebrities to try and sponsor us to win
l) did stuff to garner votes for us that we didn't even HEAR ABOUT

there are no words to adequately capture how much we appreciate your efforts. This was an unexpected and touching experience, and we will never forget it.


Jon and I are going back to the original 2013 wedding date, and hope to save enough to have a wedding worthy of how much love and support we have around us. But there are plenty of wedding contests still out there (are you reading this Good Morning America?).

Don't worry, we know we've already played our Vote For Us Card...for now.

We love each and every single one of you. Thank you so much again for showing us how loved we are.





*Yes, I'm retiring the "H" now that the cat's out of the bag and scratching up the furniture.
**We'd hate to have forgotten anyone. Please let us know if we did!