01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, May 23, 2004

Karen Medeiros and Alan Golder

Waterplace Park, Providence

4.23.04

Imagine having a full-blown wedding without the bride and groom having to make any decisions. Furthermore, it won't cost their families a penny.

That's exactly what Karen Medeiros and Alan Golder had to imagine when they were chosen as winners of a Coast 93.3 wedding-giveaway contest. Over 100 couples competed for the all-expenses-paid wedding and honeymoon.

"The only catch," says Alan, "was that the winning couple had to surrender all control to the listeners: They voted on wedding attire, rings, flowers, invitations, cake, food, and the honeymoon location. All we had to do was show up to exchange vows on a particular date and time at Bella Vista Restaurant at Waterplace Park."

Karen, a dental hygienist from Warwick, met Alan, a master sergeant with the Air National Guard, while visiting a friend in Atlanta on Labor Day weekend in 1999. While dancing at a local club, Karen lost her antique birthstone necklace.

Suddenly, Alan, a complete stranger, was down on his hands and knees helping her look for it, after which he asked for Karen's phone number.

"I told him I was only visiting for a few days from Rhode Island, but he insisted that I have lunch with him the next day. When I left, he ran to the gate with a single red rose to say goodbye."

For almost a year, they visited back and forth every other weekend. "Each time we left each other, it grew harder and harder," says Karen. On Valentine's Day, Alan proposed, and by August, Karen had moved to Georgia to be with him at Robins Air Force Base.

But, six months later, the climate, the bugs, and, most of all, missing her family, sent her back to Rhode Island, with Alan to follow as quickly as he could arrange a transfer to the Rhode Island Air National Guard at Quonset Point. That was May 2001.

They started to plan a wedding, but Sept. 11 brought their plans to a halt.

Here is an excerpt from Alan's wedding-winning story:

I don't know when I am going to be deployed to the Gulf. I just came back from a couple of months tour in Germany and now our unit is deployed to the Gulf for up to two years, so I don't know when my turn is going to come up. So it is pretty hard to plan a wedding. I would hate to spend all that money and then be stuck and lose it all. Please pick us so we can get married and not have to worry if I go anywhere with the military. I love Karen very much and this would help us out tremendously.

Karen recalls thinking how perfect this would be for her. "I'm a procrastinator, so this would eliminate a lot of stress. I wouldn't have to pick any of it out, and better yet, I wouldn't have to pay for it." The only thing she worried about was the honeymoon: one of the choices was Disney World. "I'll go anywhere but please, please don't let it be Disney World."

The listeners must have heard her plea: they chose the Mayan Riviera in Mexico.