Monday, May 9, 2011

Wedding Anthology Blog Hop CONTEST!

I have the honor and privledge to be involved in a very special project with five of my fellow Astraea Press authors. We've collaborated to create a Wedding Anthology titled Matrimonial Mahem to help the Alabama families who suffered at the hands of the deadly tornadoes.

Elaine Cantrell, "It All Started with Cinders Malone's Dress," based upon A New Dream. From the wrong dress to a canine disaster with the wedding cake, can anything go right for Matt and Violet on their wedding day?

Therese Gilardi, "Marriage on Sunset," based upon Matching Wits with Venus.  Before Colin and Amelia, came Amelia's parents Stella Sweetwater and Gerard Coillard. Maybe not a match made in Heaven, but certainly one arranged by Venus...on Sunset Boulevard.

J.F. Jenkins, "Legend of the Aero Dragon," based upon The Legend of the Oceina Dragon. When a young dragon falls in love, best not to be standing between him and his chosen mate...especially if his choice doesn't exactly match the choice of his father.

Kim Bowman, "The Ballad of Brenda and Willard," based on a true urban legend  Third time was the charm in the wedding tale of this author's parents, but exactly what date their anniversary should be celebrated on is anybody's guess.

J. Gunnar Grey, "The Lilies at Laura's Wedding," based upon Deal with the Devil. No happy hitching to be found here, but sometimes the better course to take is to say "I don't."

Kay Springsteen, "Camp Wedding," based upon Heartsight. A blind Marine, a nervous bride, and an adorable child who loves them both is an equation for another tug on the heartstrings in the story behind Dan and Trish's wedding.

All proceeds will be going to benefit the Governor of Alabama's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for the hardest storm-hit areas of the state. So don't forget to go click HERE and buy your copy for $5. It's a book of great stories for a great cause!

The six of us have decided to throw a bash in honor of our wonderful book and the amazing cause it's going to help. And with a party comes PRIZES PRIZES PRIZES!!! So here's the scoop of prizes. We're running this hop until Saturday at midnight EST. We'll have 4 winners. Prizes will be as follows

1st place be the Princess Diana beanie baby bear and an Astraea Press coupon code to use toward the purchase of any titles on the Astraea Press website, plus an ecopy of a book currently available by one of the six of us (winner's choice)
 
2nd place is a beautiful neclace and a paperback of my book Wayward Soul, plus an ecopy of a book currently available by one of the six of us (winner's choice)
 
3rd place is choice of 2 copies of ebooks currently offered by the six of us (winner's choice)
 
4th place is choice of 1 copy of ebook currently offered by the six of us (winner's choice)
 
Rules would be as follows:
 
Contestant must comment on all seven blogs to be eligible to win. This includes the Astraea Press Blog as well as the blogs of all six authors of the anthology. You can click HERE to go to the AP Blog if you need to:) Otherwise, the link to the next blog is at the bottom of this post.
 
For every person you send to our blog hop (the person has to note your name in their post) you get another entry for prizes, same if you tweet and facebook (be sure to tell us you did). Please don't hesitate to let us know if you have questions:) 







To promote Matrimonial Mahem, the six of us are blogging about weddings! I get to post beautiful pictures of brides on their special day. Yep, that's me on my wedding day. It's hard for me to believe we've been married twelve years this August. I paid $10 for the dress and $50 dollars for the boots. I was pretty happy. I loved my wedding day. It was perfect in every way.

This book also provided me the opportunity to honor my parents, Brenda and Willard Lawson, in a very special way. My contribution to our anthology, The Ballad of Brenda and Willard, is based on a true urban legend.  Third time was the charm in the wedding tale of my parents' wedding, but exactly what date their anniversary should be celebrated on is anybody's guess. Unfortunately, there were no pictures taken on that day, so their photo isn't exactly a wedding picture, but it's the first one taken of them together so it's the closest I have. You'll have to buy the book to find out why no pictures were taken and why their wedding is a running joke in our family:)

I also wanted to add a picture of my beautiful sister and her gorgeous wedding dress. She's been so supportive of me and my writing so I wanted to honor as well. Thank you, sis:)






Now, for some of the lovely ladies from Astraea Press. First up is Elaine Cantrell. How elegant and beautiful from her dress to her veil and flowers. I also LOVE the expression on her face.









If you've read any of Jean Joachim's hilarious blog posts, this picture is her to a "T". Gorgeous and fun. The ruffles are amazing and add to the dress.








Felicia Rogers shared a special picture with us. She had a beautiful dress and a gorgeous day for her wedding.











Besides the beautiful wedding dress, I love Kay Springsteen's mom in this picture. I adore her dress and she looks like she's the most fun person in the world. although she fits under Kay's arm, she's definitely larger than life.





Of all the pictures people were willing to share, this is my favorite. I love the the look on Cheryl Grey's face, the emotion. The clothes are amazing and the background is wonderful.







Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you've enjoyed my parade of pictures. I know I have. I never get tired of looking at brides on their special day.
Now, for more Matrimonial Mahem, hop on over to the next blog with Cheryl Grey by clicking HERE.











8 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing the beautiful photos! I'm really looking forward to reading your story!

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  2. Everyone is so beautiful! I have wedding envy (and I'm going to my baby cousin's wedding this Saturday--I swear I'm going to be the last one married!)

    I love that your boots cost more than the dress!

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  3. Thank you all so much for stopping by:) This project is near and dear to my heart because it's a living legacy to two people I adore and the book will go to help our fellow Americans.

    @renee, you'll get there! and I lucked out on the dress and the boots. A western store was going out of business. We went there to get the kids boots. My husband saw the dress and had me try it on. I could tell by the look in his eyes, it was "the one". The dress was marked $400 but you told them what you were willing to pay. I told the guy $20 for the dress and boots. He was not happy and said he couldn't do it. I reminded him that he was closing his doors in 2 days and I didn't see anyone else offering him anything for them. He sighed and said, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you the dress for $10, but I can't take less than $50 for the boots."

    I started to protest, but my husband (who was embarrassed by that point at my cheapness)jabbed me in the side and said, "She'll take it."

    When we got in the truck he said, "I expect to spend about $300 for your dress and boots (boots were $350). I can't believe you got them for $60!"

    My dad taught me something:)

    I hope you'll all follow all the blogs. You'll find out how my hubby proposed if you do:)

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  4. Everyone looks so happy in these photos. What a wonderful post!

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  5. Thank you, Liz! I'm so glad you stopped by and I hope you'll visit the other blogs for more wedding treats:)

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  6. Loved the photos of the brides in the post. It is great to see how wedding always bring so much joy among people. It’s been a few months that we’ve been preparing for my sister’s wedding and we’ve had such a wonderful time with our families so far. Now I’m looking forward to the wedding, which will be in a few weeks at the event space NYC.

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