Jenna Eagleton and Caroline Currie, who
live in Portland, have won a $100,000 dream wedding.
Real Maine Weddings chose its winner
Sunday from three finalist couples at the Maine Wedding Association
Bridal Show in Freeport.
A gay marriage law took effect in Maine
in December after voters approved a referendum on the issue.
The women will exchange vows on a farm
in Kennebunkport in October. Their wedding will be the first gay
union to be featured by the magazine.
“It just really makes a statement,”
Currie told NBC
affiliate WLBZ. “It really shows that like yes this is okay,
this is right, and this is the way things are.”
“Love is love,” Eagleton added.
Couples enter the giveaway by
submitting a video in which they state why they deserve a free dream
wedding.
In their video submission, the couple
said they met in the fall of 2008 and, unwilling to leave Maine, had
tucked away their dream of marriage.
“But when the same-sex marriage bill
was passed in November, I went out and bought a ring,” a smiling
Currie said in the video.
“Shortly after our engagement, my
dad, who has been sick with Leukemia for about 5 years, told me that
he wanted nothing more than to walk me down the aisle at my wedding.
And he suggested that we move the wedding sooner.”
“So, we decide even if it wasn't our
dream wedding, it meant more to have her dad there,” Eagleton
added. (The video is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)