On March 8th, Rice-Eccles Stadium will host something a little more romantic than a football game — its tower will be the venue of the Ultimate Utah Wedding.
The 2014 wedding winners are Alexandria Woodall and Jordan Burningham, a couple from Bountiful who originally met each other in high school and were engaged last August. Woodall and Burningham applied in the fall of 2013 to be considered for the event and went through a rigorous process to become one of the final two couples in consideration for the prize. Their win was announced last week, and they now have two months until their nuptials.
The wedding winners are chosen through online voting and determined to be “the biggest U fans.”
Woodall’s connection to the U is through her five-year old son Koda. He was treated for leukemia at Primary Children’s Medical Center and had a good experience because of U student resident doctors. Because of the medical costs of Koda’s treatment, Woodall and her fiancé Burningham have not been able to save money for a wedding.
“We were trying to pretend we were saving money, but it really wasn’t going anywhere, and so we decided to set [the wedding] back for a year or two,” Woodall said. “The contest was perfect timing.”
Woodall is looking forward to the wedding because she hopes it will create a family for her two children.
Many aspects of the wedding will be chosen by the public in a voting process similar to the online voting that took place to determine the winning couple. Vendors will create two different wedding packages that include the dress, cake and décor for the wedding, and the public will help choose the final option.
Tiffany Swenson, the marketing coordinator for the event, has enjoyed watching the process building up to the wedding.
“It’s a lot of fun. It’s really fun to get the public involved and to work with the couple as well,” Swenson said.
Woodall said her fiancé Burningham loves how much of the wedding is already taken care of for them.
“My fiancé loves that he can go to [the wedding planners] and just let them go to town,” she said. “They’re making it really easy to work around our schedules.”
[email protected]