Watch above: A Saskatoon woman who lost her husband to cancer after just one month of marriage has found happiness again. Meaghan Craig explains how a wedding planner’s second marriage has inspired her to pay it forward.
SASKATOON – A local love story has come full circle and now the widow, at the centre of it all, is paying it forward after finding love again. On Friday, we reunited with Crystal MacLeod, formerly Crystal Bonderud, a certified wedding planner who had her love story end before it barely began.
She previously planned her wedding in just two months at the bedside of her fiancé who was dying of cancer after he was initially misdiagnosed.
“I really know how stressful that can be and bittersweet in trying to plan the happiest day of your life under unhappy times,” said MacLeod, owner and event specialist at RSVP Event Design.
Their heartbreaking story first surfaced in 2006 and the man of her dreams died just one month after their storybook wedding.
Nearly a decade later, it’s this tragedy that has inspired a contest.
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“We’ve called it the ‘Dream Wedding Contest’ so it’s actually worth $28,000 in products and services, it’s based basically on love stories,” said MacLeod.
“People have been submitting their entries online talking about how they met, talking about how they got engaged, about their dream wedding and more importantly why they feel they’re deserving of a dream wedding.”
The only criteria a couple needs to meet in order to apply is their wedding date must be in 2015, although the rules could potentially be bent if medical treatments conflict with the time frame.
So far there have been 140 entries to the contest, many of which have pulled at the heart strings said MacLeod.
“A bride that is going through treatment for leukemia right now, a groom that has testicular cancer and he’s going through chemotherapy, there was another bride that was in a really bad car accident and is undergoing physiotherapy and had to postpone her wedding.”
Hardships aside, Macleod explained that the winning entry will be based on a really good love story.
“I’m really happily remarried to my husband Mark, I have a two-and-half-year-old son named Anderson, so my story has a really happy ending and I just really want to give a happy ending to another couple as well.”
People can enter the contest until 3:30 p.m. CST on Feb. 7 and the winner will be announced on Valentines’ Day.
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