Wedding Giveaway | Round 2 Details | Thank YOU!!!

To our amazing friends and family… first and foremost, I want to share… we made it to the final round of the Giveaway!!! We are so thankful for the countless hours of time and all the effort people put into supporting us and sharing our story. Here is the way round two of voting will be conducted. The phenomenal vendors who are gifting over $30,000 worth of their time and talents in this giveaway have selected a panel of 65 anonymous individuals who will vote to select the grand prize winner. Almost from Day 1 of this contest, we have been wondering if having a panel of anonymous, unbiased voters would have been better than an online race to see who could get the most votes. This was Katelyn and Michael’s first time EVER giving away something this huge, exciting, and special… it’s a wedding day! Every couple involved had people rooting for them, pulling for them, praying for them, and emotionally invested in their story and their shot at a dream wedding. But we wondered if it would have been more fair for just a select amount of people to watch the videos and see whose story truly spoke to their heart the most. This whole time we’ve been saying how much we truly poured our hearts and souls into our video. Because we did. It was so much about that. And I didn’t want it to be about how many times I could click the share button on Facebook… I wanted it to be about our story and most importantly, Jesus.

That is why I have to say that I am 500% happy with the way this giveaway has been conducted. Our video reached THOUSANDS of people. We had someone on Tumblr (staypozitive) with 837,000+ followers sharing our story every day, multiple times a day. We had thousands of people texting, tweeting, emailing, Instagramming, etc. on our behalf and sharing the link to our voting page… which had the link to our video… which had a message we had prayed over that we hoped would touch people’s hearts and shine the light of Christ into their lives. And it has truly done just that. It has been mind blowing the amount of messages I’ve received from people who do not know Jesus that are inspired by our commitment to the Lord. That’s why even though we had wondered if a panel from the beginning would have been best…. our story would have never reached the thousands (and perhaps tens of thousands) that it did. God was working behind the scenes of this giveaway the entire time and none of us knew exactly how. But now we do. Through the voting portion, people got to share their stories and reach thousands and thousands of people across the country and around the world. Now through the panel portion, the winner will be selected through a fair system that doesn’t rely on Facebook platforms, popularity, or how many times you can harass your friends to vote for you :)

Thank you SO SO SO much to everyone who has supported and voted for us. We cannot tell you enough how much your support means to us. We have never felt so loved and cared for. We had a TEAM behind us, lifting us up, encouraging us in prayer and in their passion to see us win. Your hard work and perseverance is the reason we made it to the final 5, and we can not thank you enough. We are so excited for whoever wins this amazing gift, and we are beyond thankful for the way Katelyn, Michael, and all of the vendors have handled this giveaway with kindness, grace, and a desire to end the giveaway in the most fair way possible. The winner will be announced Thursday at 9am on www.katelynjamesblog.com and www.bigspringva.com/blog, so stay tuned, lift us up in prayer, and again… thank you. We love you all and are so grateful for the many new friends we have made through this giveaway. Mark your calendars for Thursday, and keep sharing our video! Let’s continue to spread a message of positivity and love throughout the remainder of this contest. We know that the Lord is in control and our faith and trust is in Him. Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.