DULUTH, MN (December 25, 2013) – Pro Sound & Light Show DJ’s & Uplighting, a Duluth Minnesota based disc jockey company made Christmas a little brighter for 6 Military couples today. Pro Sound & Light Show DJ’s gave away 6 complete Diamond Entertainment DJ Packages for their weddings or anniversaries in Minnesota, Wisconsin or the UP of Michigan. This package includes a reading of their Love Story.
During this Season of Giving, Pro Sound & Light Show wanted to help a Military or Veteran couple help celebrate their love by giving them a complete DJ package. Military couples entered by sharing their love story, how they met, or what the proposal was like and then having their friends vote on Facebook.
“Planning a wedding can be a challenging experience as it is, but it’s extra challenging for those in the Military. For those on Active Duty, their plans have to be made around serving our Country,” said Tom Kenemore, CEO, Pro Sound & Light Show DJ’s & Uplighting. “This is our 2nd Annual Salute To Love Contest and we just received so many great entries, we couldn’t pick just one winner, so we gave away 6 complete wedding DJ packages.”
Here are the 6 winning couples and their entries:
Vanessa & Cody, our top vote receiving couple with 180 votes: “Cody and I met New Year’s Eve 2008, he would say it was love at first sight. It was by chance that we met through mutual friends; he was home only for the holidays from basic training. Once he returned back to basic he messaged me and we stayed in contact for the two weeks he had left of training. Once he came home, we were inseparable. Through the years our relationship has overcame 2 tours (one to Iraq and one to Afghanistan), the death of both his grandparents, the death of my Mom, the near death of my Aunt, and the surgery and recovery of donating my kidney to give my Aunt her life back, and the birth of our beautiful daughter Rosalind. Each and every experience we have been there for each other providing the strength and support one another needed. These have only made our relationship and love grow stronger and fonder. After nearly 5 years together and being unbreakable and defying the odds he purposed. It was December 24, 2012. We were headed to Brule, WI to my Grandma Johnson’s for the holiday. Cody asked me to stop at the cemetery just down the road from my Grandma’s before we go to her house. We had planned to go to the cemetery after church to light lanterns for my Mom to wish her a Merry Christmas but he was adamant that we stop there before as well. I agreed, but said we had to make it quick because dinner was going to be served soon and we were going to the cemetery after church still. We got to the cemetery; the snow was deep so we trudged through to the spot my Mom lay rest. We stood there for a few moments in silence then Cody turned me around to face him, it is from here on it all becomes a blur. He spoke about our life together and about my Mom, the next thing I know he is on his knee in the snow holding a ring. It took a second for me to register what he was doing. “Yes of course!” I exclaimed. It was not traditional but it was us and it was perfect, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Kelly & Neil, our 2nd top vote receiving couple with 121 votes: “I met the man I will call my husband in college. I walked into a math class and the professor did the typical introduce yourself to the class and tell us something most wouldn’t know about you. All is fine and good until this man introduces himself, “Hi I’m Neil, and most wouldn’t know I’m in the military.” I rolled my eyes thinking, yeah because that high and tight isn’t a dead give away or anything. The next day Neil sits next to me in class and the professor had just finished writing our page number on the board and telling everyone to turn to that page. After a few minutes Neil asks me what page were on and annoyed I answer page six. That was the last time I saw Neil at school, I was transferred into a different class the next day. I guess you could say I’m not the best at first impressions. Coincidently a year and a half later Neil and I met again after I had noticed someone liked a few Facebook post I had post. I investigated and decided to text this guy and see how I knew him, he said he knew my brother. It wasn’t until our first date that Neil reminded me of college. I of course didn’t remember this first blimp in out relationship, but Neil was sure to remind me that I hadn’t been the nicest when we first met. Looks like I’ll have many years to make it up to him.”
With 109 votes our 3rd top vote receiving couple is Lisa and her mystery Air Force fiance (we will get his name soon!): “Just over a year ago my best friend Janine insisted she had a guy that I needed to meet. I turned down her suggestion for a couple months then finally gave in at the beginning of December. She informed me that this mystery man was her brother. Brother? I didn’t even know she had a brother, but okay! She showed me two pictures of him and a few days later we talked on the phone for the first time. She left out a small detail that he was stationed in Mississippi with the Air Force! We really hit it off on our phone conversation and skyped once before he came home for 12 days on leave. We met in person on December 20th and were inseparable from that day on, it was like we had known each other forever. I flew to visit him for one weekend every other month and I began to hate airports because they only reminded me of the hard goodbyes. This September I was fortunate to find a transfer position at work and moved to Florida where he will be stationed in April. We found an adorable home, which will soon be our first place together! Last night we spent the evening walking our neighborhood and chatted about our future. We continued this conversation at a local bar/restaurant and when we got home I went to walk in the front door. He stopped me, spun me around and was already down on his knee on the front porch of our first place. I was so shocked I didn’t even say yes, I simply hugged him and literally laughed and cried. We sat there in disbelief and hugged each other tight then one by one woke up each of our family members to tell them the news. We are happy, our friends are happy, our family is happy and we couldn’t be more excited to share our big day back home along the shores of Lake Superior.”
With 49 votes our 4th top vote receiving couple is Tawhna and Ray: “Ray and I met a few years ago through a mutual friend, at the time we were both unavailable and not looking and honestly I thought he was a little weird,loud, and a bit overwhelming anyways lol, we remained casual friends that would say hi to each other from time to time and eventually lost touch completely. We met again in 2012 at a local self help meeting we both attend, Ray was being the same cocky guy I remember from the first time I met him, he was showing card tricks and telling jokes to anyone that would walk in the door only this time there was something a little different about him. As I came to find out he had recently stopped drinking as I had and you could see a light in his eyes that I did not remember from before. He was very charming and I have to admit pretty funny and cute. We began to talk on the phone again, at the time he was living in a camper on fish lake. He had kind of hit bottom financially and had a very hard year personally but I was impressed how happy he seemed with only a camper and a fishing boat. He invited me on a date and we went up north to some hiking trails, I knew right away when we finished my favorite trail that I really liked this guy. He is one of the kindest people I have ever met, I knew he was in the military though he never really talked about it, he would only mention “his guys” and how he cared what was happening with them which I found pretty sweet. We do very spontaneous things all of the time and I love it, everything from running on a beach in a thunderstorm to watching the sunrise on top of a hill. Ray and I have both been through a lot with alcoholism and addiction, since we have met both of us have celebrated 1 year of sobriety and grow together each and every day. We have 5 beautiful children between us from previous marriages, the ages are 9,7,5,5, and 1.5. Ray calls the kids our “Army”! Ray is deploying soon and wont be back to the US until later next year, I am very proud of him. Ray asked me to marry him in November of this year, it was really cute, he always watches weird UFO documentaries on YouTube and sometime I watch with him, he threw one on called “UFO in Minneapolis Airport” and I watched. It looked legit as there was a green light on the TV floating about, but then he started talking, he mentioned his favorite moments with me and why we are such a good team, at the end he said he had a question to ask me and I just started saying yes. We are very excited about our wedding which will be taking place October 4th , 2014. We figured 10-4 would be hard to forget! Thank you for taking the time to read this and we hope you will vote for us! Have a blessed day.”
Our 5th top vote receiving entry with 34 votes is Shannon and Augustine: “It was my senior year of college and it started out just like the previous three years, at the pre-season cross country camp in Mahtowa, Minnesota. For the St. Scholastica cross country team, camp is a week-long team-building event filled with getting to know one another, activities, learning about nutrition, oh yeah – and lots of running! While camp was the same fun week as always, my life changed forever when the tall, dark, and handsome Augustine Dann told his condensed life story to the team. Although I had never had a boyfriend before, I knew right away that I wanted to date Augustine.
Being his first year on the team and first time running cross country ever, I later found out he didn’t think he had a chance with me, being a senior captain and all. Well, that wasn’t true and we really got talking after we got back from camp. Awkwardly enough, we talked for hours while we washed our smelly, week’s worth of running clothes in the laundry room of our apartment building, that we both happened to live in on campus.
That night, he asked me to go on a date with him the next day. Our first date was perfect. It started out with a 6-mile run in the morning and I figured this was a piece-of-cake for a military man. Little did I know that 2-mile runs, at a much faster pace, were what he was used to in the Army National Guard. A walk along Lake Superior and a stop at Dairy Queen was the end to a perfect day.
After graduating that December, I didn’t return to Duluth until almost two years later. Augustine and I planned a trip to visit Duluth this past November and it was then that he proposed to me on the same running trails we ran on our first date. I feel so blessed and lucky to be Augustine’s future wife. Not only is he the love of my life and truest friend, he’s also my soldier and hero. May 30th, 2014 will be the best day ever.”
Rounding out our winners with 31 votes is Elizabeth and Matt: “Matt and I have always been best friends. We meet at school 6-7 years ago and couldn’t be separated since then. One summer I was away for a week long event and came home to find a penguin stuff animal and a date for that night. Matt asked me out then 3 months later he threw me a surprise birthday party. Popping the question in front of all the family. He was always there even through all the training that kept apart. Now we’re planning on getting married in January. I couldn’t be anymore happy to be marrying my best friend and life time battle buddy.”
All other entries will receive an extra Military discount for their weddings. From all of us at Pro Sound & Light Show DJ’s & Uplighting, Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!