Happy couples!

This week’s winners stories are all from happy couples, with a wedding theme! Read on for comping inspiration… 

Lyndsey’s boyfriend was lucky enough to win a huge Gadget Show prize, which certainly gave her comping hobby a boost! But what happened next…?

“My boyfriend won the Gadget Show competition back in October 2015 – it was an amazing, if slightly exhausting win!  We ended up selling about three quarters of the prizes, making about £16,000 in cash and keeping about £7000 of prizes (mainly kitchen and domestic stuff!).  The money helped pay off some debts and the rest went into our savings for ‘the future’.  Although we’d been together for over 12 years we had never quite got around to getting married. It wasn’t a big problem but it was starting to feel like we should get on with it! In February 2016 I saw the Hallmark wedding competition and asked Jon the question ‘If I won us a wedding, would we get married?’. He muttered ‘yeah sure’ whilst watching the telly – so I went for it! Whilst I was at it I also entered lots of other wedding related competitions, but then completely forgot about it. I didn’t win with Hallmark – but I did get a call out of the blue from Wedding Ideas magazine to say that I’d won an £1895 Justin Alexander wedding dress!

At this point I still wasn’t engaged but a friend pointed out that the T&C’s stated that entrants needed to be a genuine bride to be! I was working long hours at the time and only seeing Jon first thing in the morning before I went to work at about 6am. One morning I had to tell him that I had won a wedding dress, and also about the stipulation to be a genuine bride to be… to which he said “Well you are, I just haven’t asked you yet!”. And so it all began…

I ended up choosing my wedding dress before he’d officially popped the question. He eventually proposed in June and we got married in October. It really was fab. I would have liked to have win the whole day but I loved my dress. And I did also win £500 with Capital FM in July which went towards the big day… and our Gadget Show win also made sure we had a lovely day!”

“Jon and I are both so pleased we finally got around to getting married. Since I discovered comping 18 months ago, it really has changed my life for the better and I do thank you for that. I can’t imagine how things would be without the £10k of prizes I’ve won since I started, and that isn’t including the Gadget Show win that Jon entered once he’d seen me winning a few things. Its pretty mind blowing and I can’t wait to see what happens next!”

(photos by Nikki Cooper Photography)

Rob had a great win from Samsung at just the right time!

“I was very lucky last year and won a trip to Dubai which I was able to use for my honeymoon when my wife and I got married in June. It was a competition Samsung ran for all of its retail partners and originally, the date passed when the winner was decided and I thought nothing of it. Then a couple of weeks later I received a phone call – the person who originally won the prize had turned it down so I was second choice! How incredibly lucky!

I mentioned that I was due to get married on the 11th of June and although it would be short notice, I asked if I could have the trip for my honeymoon, to make it extra special. I was informed the next day that my trip could be booked for 13th June for five nights away! I was amazed at my luck, we were given tickets for a desert safari and a boat cruise which meant we had activities pre-booked for us and could spend the rest of the time away as we pleased.

It was a honeymoon to remember and best of all, it was free! It was an incredible experience and it’s inspired me to never give up and continue to enter competitions even if I think there’s no chance of winning!”

Beth had to work hard to win a rather unique prize…

“My biggest prize of last year came with a title…. we won ‘West Midlands Wedding of the year’! This was with a national wedding magazine that has a special edition for each region. I saw an advert to enter your wedding to be considered for the title, and knew I wanted to go for it. After filling in a questionnaire and sending some photos it went through several rounds, asking you to answer more questions. I spent lots of time trying to be different and really show why we were the best. Then awfully it was put to a public vote online! Horrendous. But I persevered asking all our friends and family to vote, and we won – but then it went to ANOTHER public vote which shortlisted candidates. It was quite awkward to have to ask everyone to vote again and I was disheartened. I did what I could and hoped for the best. It was a terrible process really, but finally I got a letter to say we’d won and would have a spread in the magazine as well as a two night stay at New Hall hotel and Spa in a suite, a massage each, dinner one night, and champagne afternoon tea. It was absolutely amazing, the nicest place we’ve ever stayed and it felt like another honeymoon. The article came out and it’s now framed on our wall and that’s also really special for us to keep.”

What lovely stories – did you manage to win a prize for your wedding or honeymoon? Let me know in the comments!