“Eye Do”

I guess our wedding story is kind of our claim to fame so I will try to share it here as briefly as possible.

Rob and I bought, and moved into, our first house, in February of 1995. We weren’t married (shhhhh) and weren’t really in any rush to get married because things were pretty much perfect as they were.

We had our first (of four) Boxer puppy and our new house to take care of. That was lots.

BUT… one day my (future) maid of honour called and told me that the TV show Eye on Toronto was having a contest – you could win your wedding on TV. She, who was already married with two kids, said it would be fun to enter and see what happened.

I didn’t really jump on board right away. However, the next day I was talking about it at work and two of my coworker friends thought it was a great idea and started brainstorming ideas right away. By the end of the work day, I was in! All I had to do was convince Rob!

The contest, hosted by The Bay and Eye on Toronto, was this: Produce a video telling us why we should choose you to be married on the show.

Easy??

My friends agreed to come over and be our videographers and to courier the tape into the CTV studio in Scarborough. It had to be couriered because by the time we made the tape, it was due the next day! This was before the days of emailing your video file!

Rob agreed, after minimal coaxing. Only because he knew we would never win.

We decided, that in Letterman style, we would do a Top Ten list of reasons they should choose us to be married on the show. We thought this would be a good way to make our entry stand out to the judges – funny (in true Pam and Rob style) instead of sappy.

So our friends came over that night to tape our Top Ten List in the rec room of our house, with our ten flash cards, a card table and chairs and the dog.

Our Top Ten List is as follows:

Commentary in italics and (parantheses) are for you, the reader, but were not a part of the original list.

Top Ten Reasons Pam and Rob Should Be Chosen To Get Married on the Show

• This could be our big break to get our own TV talk show!
• None of our friends are technologically inclined and we could never trust them to videotape our wedding (at which point they filmed like the Blair Witch Project)
• None of the other venues we considered would let us bring our baby (the dog!)
• We just bought a new house and every time we save up money that we could use on a wedding, something has to be fixed…. the furnace, the roof, the driveway … the DOG… (at which point Taz – the dog – jumped up on Rob’s lap)
• We are tired of eating off of paper plates (because a set of dishes was one of the prizes)
• As one of the bridesmaids, this will give Robin Ward [the host of the show] an opportunity to wear a pretty dress – in public.
• If, for some reason, in the future our marriage doesn’t work out, all we will have to do is push rewind
• To make sure that our “ex’s” see how great we look on our wedding day and how happy we have become
• The LEAFS don’t play on March 1st (which was the date of the televised wedding)
• YOU CAN’T PUT A WEDDING ON A BAY CARD!!!!

The actual video job and our “props” was very hokey but obviously effective!

I was at work on Valentine’s Day 1996 when they announced the winner live, on the show.

A friend came in and covered my class for me so that I could watch it in the library. They started by talking about the contest and said that there had been a number of great entries and they shared 2 or 3. Then they showed the runner up. It was a well produced video so, in my mind, I knew ours could not be the winner as it was not as well done as the runner up. Then they said that the next video was the winner.

Imagine my SHOCK when, all of a sudden, the TV screen panned in on my rec room!

OH. MY. GOD.

WE WON!

We were going to get married!

Live on TV.

IN TWO WEEKS!

I was so surprised. I called Rob at work – on his office extenstion because we did not have cell phones – and was breathing heavily. All I said was “We won!”. His response was, “Who is this?”

I calmed myself down and explained to him that we had won the wedding contest. He had completely put it out of his mind! Remember – I told you he only did it because he knew we would never win! He was shocked as well and said he guessed we better get engaged (cuz we weren’t yet) and that he better ask my dad permission to marry me.

I called my mom who already knew because she had been watching the live announcement as well. The first words out of her mouth were “Oh my God! I have to find a mother of the bride dress in two weeks!”

THEN it started to sink in and I realized that I also had to find a bridal gown in two short weeks! And plan the rest of the wedding!

It was February 14 and we were to get married two weeks later on March 1, 1996 live on Eye on Toronto with Carla Collins and Robin Ward.

There was a lot of preparation to do in those two weeks. We traveled from Oavkille to downtown Toronto almost daily. They had to do a lot of interviews and pre-show taping. They played snippets of interviews in the week leading up to the wedding.

They interviewed our friends and family. They came to my school and talked to some students. They videotaped us at work. They taped us on our Prizes Shopping Spree at the Bay. We were there so often in that 2 week period that the staff started to call us “Eye on Toronto’s Pam and Rob”.

There were so many prizes that came along with the wedding. I am sure I have a list somewhere but off of the top of my head, the prizes were: wedding decorations and flowers, a set of Denby dishes, stainless steel flatware, crystal glassware, a set of luggage, cruise wear from Liz Claiborne, 15 small appliances, wedding dress (purchased from the Bay) and bridesmaid dress as well as a flower girl dress (because we asked), tuxedo rentals, clothes from the Bay, a reception for 40 guests at The Atrium at the Bay on Queen Street in Toronto, a stay at Sutton Place for our wedding night and an all inclusive trip with first class air fare to Nassau, Bahamas.

When Rob saw the list of prizes, I think he was finally glad that we did it – despite the two weeks of running around and the total lack of privacy in those two weeks.

We did have to sign an agreement saying that we would remain married for at least a year. I guess this was their effort to ensure that no one was doing this solely for the prizes. We did that – and then some. Had Rob not passed away in January, we would have celebrated 25 years in March.

So, all WE had to pay for was my engagement ring (which we did not have yet), our wedding bands and the photographer. The rest was covered as a part of our multitude of prizes.

The day of the wedding, we were picked up in a limo at our house and driven to the Eye on Toronto / CTV studios in Scarborough to get ready for the live shooting at 11am. It was a fun day. I am sure no more stressful than a normal wedding but definitely one that we would always remember. I think our guests likely remembered it as well.

It was a crazy whirlwind two week period but I wouldn’t change a thing! We didn’t have time to change our minds about any of the decisions we made and it still ended up being one of the best days of our lives!

Lesson learned? HAVE FUN! Take risks! Sometimes they turn out to be the best decisions you will ever make.