After a sleepless night Feb. 26, Arnold Henry finally found out at about 8 a.m. whether he had managed to keep his Valentine’s Day promise to his fiancée that he would win her the $98,000 dream wedding from Virgin radio.
“I didn’t get much sleep that night. I was anxious, anticipating the results,” he said.
Henry and his fiancée, Stephanie Beninger, woke up at 5 a.m. listening to the radio hoping to hear their names announced or to get the phone call.
Three hour passed and the contest wasn’t even mentioned by the host, building up the anxiety and anticipation for the couple.
Finally, around 8 a.m. Beninger decided to fix breakfast.
“About 10 minutes after 8 in the morning, my phone vibrated, I looked down and the caller ID read, Virgin Radio.
“I ran as quickly as I could to Stephanie, yelling, ‘Babe, they’re calling us!’,” said Henry.
They answered the phone and were announced as the winners of the contest.
“We screamed, hugged each other, shed some tears,” he said.
“It was so surreal as if I hadn’t woken up that morning,” said Henry.
The couple are both excited and relieved that the contest is over.
They spent much of the month of February campaigning for votes for the contest, a process that Henry said was both physically and mentally exhausting.
“We decided to do most of our campaigning in Chestermere since this is our home and most of the people are aware of how involve we are within our community,” he said.
They spent time in the community soliciting votes or handing out brochures so people could go home and vote for them.
“The Recreation Center and Eric’s No Frills were the places that attracted the most votes because of how busy it was,” said Henry.
They also created a website and printed t-shirts and relied heavily on social media and video appeals to get their message out.
“Stephanie and I assumed that we were getting at least a 1000 votes a day, but who knows,” said Henry.
The video that got the most attention was an emotional phone call made to Henry’s mother who lives in St. Lucia.
“She had never met Stephanie or our two-year-old son,” he said.
“One promise I made in the video is if we won the dream wedding, I would sponsor my mother so that she can visit Canada for the first time and attend her first son’s wedding,” said Henry who is working to fulfill that promise.
Although nearly everyone who voted joked that they had to be invited to the wedding Henry said that the contest only allows for 250 on the guest list.
“It isn’t official yet, but we were thinking of doing a draw to invite 4 random couples of Chestermere since we cannot invite them all…just to show our appreciation for their support,” said Henry, “we never knew that so many people would want to attend our wedding.”
He said they have chosen July 15 as their wedding date.
With the win, the wedding and vendors are pre-planned, the just have to book meetings to go over the details.
“We also get a seven nights honeymoon in Cancun, Mexico,” said Henry, “We plan on going on our honeymoon right after the wedding.”
The couple are incredibly grateful to everyone who voted for them.
