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Engaging Local Couple Compete For $100,000 Wedding
Photo from Courtney Dempsey
The Web site asks why people should vote for them. "Because my name would be Courtney Courtney, for one reason," Dempsey answers.
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Published: June 23, 2008
Updated: 06/23/2008 05:25 pm
TAMPA - A conversation with Courtney Dempsey is as upbeat as you can get. She's got a great job as director of sales at Stumps Supper Club and associate businesses. She's engaged to be married to a successful guy in the insurance game. The nuptials could be as soon as September.
And the couple is in the running in a contest to net them a $100,000 wedding that would get them hitched in style.
The future wasn't always so rosy.
Four years ago, Dempsey was in an awful mess.
She was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma and given a year to live. Treatments of radiation, chemotherapy and a double mastectomy took a heavy toll, but knocked the cancer out of her. She's still on medication and heavily in debt, but now, she has 37-year-old Gary Courtney Jr. to lean.
The contest, run by Us magazine, is icing on the wedding cake, she said in a brief outline of their romantic story. They have remained in the contest that has been pared to 20 from a field of about 4,000 couples.
Besides the fact that she would be named Courtney Courtney after saying "I do," Dempsey has a compelling story that is sure to pull some votes her way. She is hoping it's enough to put her and her betrothed into the top three by Wednesday, when the voting closes.
"He has been with me throughout the pain, sleepless nights, constant medication and side effects," she wrote in her outline, "as well as the $39,000 in debt I have incurred from having cancer. Most men would run, but he is one in a million."
Courtney and Dempsey met in June 2005 and became fast friends at first.
"We became pretty good friends for a couple months at first," Courtney said. "We didn't start dating for a while and we just hung out, watching football. She's a big Notre Dame fan and I went to Florida."
Then, they began to date, he said.
"After the first date," he said, "I was pretty much hooked."
He knew about her health problems. She was candid about her predicament, he said.
"She was almost trying to talk me out of her," he said. "She kept saying, 'Do you know what you're getting into?'"
Within a few weeks, the two moved in together.
"We have no secrets about her health," he said. "I didn't know exactly what I was getting myself into, but I know where I'm going from here."
The online contest is at www.usmagazine.com/wedding-2008-top-20, and shows that the Dempsey-Courtney ticket has garnered more than 90,000 votes.
"I'm very fortunate," Dempsey, 33, said Monday morning, "I'm so proud to be living in Tampa. I moved here five years ago from Chicago, and I've just been embraced by the city." Dempsey said she is pretty sure most of her 90,000 votes came from people who live here, including many of her friends and acquaintances at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute.
Dempsey says her dream wedding would take place on the beach, "somewhere warm." She wants a big party with family and friends. If she wins, what she doesn't spend on the wedding would be donated to Moffitt, she said.
"We'd want it to be laid back, with the little things in life that make you happy," she says, "like cupcakes and french fries!"
The Web site asks why people should vote for them.
As of Monday morning, the Courtney-Dempsey ticket was in fourth place, barely behind a couple from New Orleans who had almost 100,000 votes. The top vote-getters are a couple from Arizona who have about 250,000 votes.
The polls close Wednesday.
Dempsey said she is waiting for the results of the contest before setting a date. She would like to get married in September.
Dempsey, a reader of Us Magazine, said she entered the contest on a lark, to present an article about her, Courtney and their engagement. It snowballed from there, she said. To get where they are now, Dempsey and Courtney have already edged out 4,000 couples.
Both are watching the numbers, Courtney said. He's glad the story is out.
"Biggest thing for me about it is getting our story out, her story out," he said, "and it's nice to actually see something that is inspirational on the news for a change."
Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or kmorelli@tampatrib.com.
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