Brooksville Wedding of a Lifetime Giveaway

25/04/2020

Congratulations to the winning couple💕

Well, folks… it’s time. We are now announcing the winners of this contest, and because we like transparency, here are the final voting tallies:

BRITNEY & BRODIE have seized the day!

It was literally neck and neck during the last couple of days of voting… Jenesis & Bailey were a machine as well! They traded places several times at the lines along the final stretch, so no one should feel bad about the results…. You all had folks supporting you along the way, and that counts for more than simply just winning a contest. A contest is a one time thing, but friends are for life. Be grateful for them… they stood up and helped you. That says more than anything else will.

With this, the Rogue Sheriff now signs off. It was nice getting to meet all of you and answer your questions about voting and whatnot. You’re all lovely people, and in my mind, every one of you is a winner.

25/04/2020

Well, folks… it’s time. We are now announcing the winners of this contest, and because we like transparency, here are the final voting tallies:

BRITNEY & BRODIE have seized the day!

It was literally neck and neck during the last couple of days of voting… Jenesis & Bailey were a machine as well! They traded places several times at the lines along the final stretch, so no one should feel bad about the results…. You all had folks supporting you along the way, and that counts for more than simply just winning a contest. A contest is a one time thing, but friends are for life. Be grateful for them… they stood up and helped you. That says more than anything else will.

With this, the Rogue Sheriff now signs off. It was nice getting to meet all of you and answer your questions about voting and whatnot. You’re all lovely people, and in my mind, every one of you is a winner.

16/04/2020

Aaaaand, that’s all folks. Voting has now been closed. You all did really well out there.

What happens now is this… I’m going to go through all of the last week or two’s votes, make sure nothing went awry (seems like it didn’t so far, but numbers don’t lie, so I’m going to ask them some questions)….

And the winners will be announced on April 25th. Thank you so much for giving these folks the chance to get a cheap wedding. No one ever did that for me way back when, so you guys are heroes.

Remember, couples who did not win, when it all comes down to it… you STILL had so many people riled up and voting for you all over the place that you should be honored.

I’ve enjoyed your stories, the interactions with all of you during the voting process… even the one schoolteacher who accused the me of allowing the contest to be “rigged.” It’s been an adventure for us all!

By the way, there is a teacher at Garside JHS that was not able to vote this last day, so I’ll be adding her vote into the mix later in the week. I think you guys will forgive me for that. Every vote should count, because technology can sometimes be a pain in the butt… and I promised her I would get it in, so that’s just how it’s gonna be. Don’t worry… I do not believe the scales will be tipped. Even if they were, that’s democracy. :)

Take care, folks. Once I’ve conferred with the Ladies-In-Charge™, we’ll get everything set up and the winner will be announced. Thank you so much for your time through these last several months! Even if you don’t get the top prize, you’re winners, every one of ya! :D

Signing off for the night,
-The Rogue Sheriff

16/04/2020

10 minutes left… do you have goosebumps? Last chance, folks… kick those votes in! :)

16/04/2020

Hour and a half left to vote, dear readers… give your favorite couple that final push! They’ll appreciate you for it.

15/04/2020

This is the last day of voting, folks…. So get your vote on! I’m not shutting it down until around midnight EST. Sorry about the glitch earlier… OpinionStage has rectified their error. They’re nice folks, but I don’t think I’m going to miss them when the contest is over. :)

Almost there, peeps… let’s make this happen!

07/04/2020

We had a brief outage with the polling program. It has been fixed. Sorry for the delay.

02/04/2020

I’m not allowed to post results here until the game is done, but this is pretty exciting, so I figured I’d share it.

2 couples are now literally NECK AND NECK for 1st place… like 2 or 3 votes apart. Additionally, the other 3 couples are keeping pace and starting to close the gap. Folks, we have a fine contest here! Everyone is doing a great job at getting the word out, and we’re doing our best to solve any hiccups with folks voting as they come up.

Keep fighting the good fight, gentle readers. It’s anyone’s game at this point, and that’s FUN!

Oh, and no one told me that I COULDN’T tell you guys how many votes have been cast so far, so I’ll let ya know that figure: 3,641 at the time of this post.

Even if you DON’T win, couples, you’ve got a load of people rooting for you… so that’s gotta be worth something! I don’t think over 500 people have thought of ME in TOTAL during this entire life! So that’s pretty special. Y’all keep on keeping on. :)

31/03/2020

Oh, hello there. It’s your friendly Admin/Rogue Sheriff with a public service message:

I’ve gotten no fewer than 15 people asking me why their votes aren’t going through over the last few days, with the site claiming that “A vote from this IP was already submitted” was stopping them from voting. I’m gonna tell you how to subvert that, at least if you’re on a cell phone with an active plan, which most of you are, I would assume:

It’s doing that because your WIFI is activated on your phone, and if you’re around your family or friends, chances are that they gave you their password so you could get faster internet. Good times. I do the same thing. They’re not a friend if they don’t let you on their network.

Here’s the thing… if you’re connected to their network when you vote on your phone, and someone else who was also on that network voted within the last 24 hours, it all registers with the same IP address… and this poll is set to only accept ONE vote per IP address per day. So, here are your options, and none of ‘em are painful:

1. Turn off the wifi on your phone in the settings. Then, connect to the site and place your vote. It won’t be the address of the network, and WALLAPOO! Your vote will go through. Then, remember to turn it back on, and that’s that.

2. Take a walk. Like, just far enough away from the house you’re at, remember to keep a 6 foot distance between yourself and others, as our beloved government has ordered (yeah, I ignore that one when around friends as well)… and when you’re not in range of the router and back on your LTE network or whatever… vote. Takes a little exercise, but you don’t have to muck about with the settings AND you get cardio in the process. Good times, right?

3. Vote when you get home. I’m sorry that we had to set the thing to enforce IP addresses as one per day, but when we had a meager cookie set to keep individual devices from voting once per day, several figured out a way to bypass that and cheat… so here we are.

Thanks for voting. You can do it… you just have to remember that if you’re in a big group of folks who are ALL voting for the same couple, and you’re all on the same network… the Poll Software doesn’t understand. So it denies you.

Hope that helps. Keep doing what you’re doing, folks… while I can’t tell you the results, I can say that a couple of you are getting WAAAY closer to each other in the numbers than you were before. Everyone’s still kicking it up a notch… so keep doing that. I’m enjoying the show!

29/03/2020

Since I’m sure you folks are curious how things are going, while I’m not allowed to tell you where things are “precisely” at, here’s your update on the voting:

No more duplicate IP addresses are appearing, so the game is going quite fair. The two couples who were in the front-running at my last report (the Juggernauts, as I’ve come to call them) continue to have scores of folks jumping in and voting for them… that’s how it was in the preliminaries, and that continues. No real surprise there.

Here’s the good news for you other 3 nice couples: all of your percentages, your “piece of the pie” if you will, have INCREASED from last report… and guess who you’ve taken those points from? :)

Whatever you’re doing is starting to work. I can’t reveal the rankings, but I can say that you guys are getting votes as well, and they are starting to be more numerous. Keep doing what you’re doing, and get others to do it as well. You’re still contenders!

There is still a little over two weeks left before I pull the plug on this thing. I’m watching the shares of the pie close in on all fronts, slowly but surely. Every day is different. No one make the mistake of giving up…

I don’t have a horse in this race, but for ALL of the contestants, I end with this quote from the movie The Untouchables: "Never stop fighting till the fight is done."

This isn’t exactly a fight, but you get my drift. "It ain’t over till it’s over." That one’s from Yogi Berra, and he’s cooler than the Untouchables, by far. Keep on keeping on, guys. :)

28/03/2020

Alright guys… as promised, after talking to the folks behind this shindig, I’m showing you where everyone is at currently, with percentages & numbers and a pie chart.

We’re going to give you more time to vote, since COVID-19 seems to want to make everyone stay at home, and apparently hates Blueberry Festivals. The nerve!

Originally, we’d planned on stopping voting on April 2nd, but that’s when we thought we had a whole presentation to get ready for. Instead, you’ll have until April 15th to vote for your favorite couple… and we shall announce the winner on here and on the website on April 25th, when y’all’s beloved Blueberry Festival was supposed to take place… we have principles, even when Global Pandemics™ don’t. I’ll be updating this on the website shortly.

From here on out, per the request of the folks running this show, I’m not going to be showing any more results. If someone tries to gum up the works, of course I’ll let you guys know about it. However, things seem to be going swimmingly so far, so we’re just gonna move forward. That’s all anyone can do, really.

SO… you all now know where you stand at this moment: 10:09pm, Friday March 27, 2020. You know what you have to do, couples…. Get those votes. Rally your troops. Cheer on your armies. Send in your mercenaries! (Just kidding… I’d catch them) :)

As always, if anyone has any questions as we go along, I’ll be here to answer your queries. As stated earlier, I’m not going to reveal anyone’s standings beyond this point (not my call, but that’s how it goes), but as someone who has watched the progression and trends of the votes daily this whole time, I can say that every couple is getting more votes every day. I’ve seen some rise, and some lower… it changes every day. That goes for very single (er… couple?) one of you. Keep doing what you’re doing, and you might just win it. It’s still anyone’s game.

Let’s do this. We couldn’t do it without you. Don’t be discouraged if the other couples are ahead of you… yell at your friends and family. Remind them who loaned them money or cooked at their BBQ last month. Let’s make this battle fun!

Oh, and tell COVID-19 that it can kiss our collective backsides. It’s not ruining this wedding! :D

26/03/2020

Good news, folks. I’ve gone through every single line of voting day by day… and in the end of things, only two IP addresses abused the system in any way that would be measurable…and I traced them both to the same location. Don’t worry… they’re not in Brooksville. They’re not even in this part of the country, so relax… your neighbors didn’t do this.

This kindly soul or souls added a total of 165 votes in 4 days to the poll. I figured I’d be nice to them, so I let them keep 2 votes per day, since they had 2 IP addresses. The rest of the garbage has been thrown to the wayside.

Only found a couple other small anomalies in there, but nothing worth writing home about. Nothing that would rock the boat for anyone in any appreciable way. Basically, the main one causing the problems has been eradicated from the numbers… because they didn’t belong there in the first place.

What’s really good is that no one was really affected by their actions. Sure, the most likely unaware target of their fraudulent votes didn’t get those counted with them, but EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU is getting more votes daily than the day before. So, this spoiler-clown with the moral compass of a rabid weasel really doesn’t matter in the end of things. If anything, the voting percentages look similar to the last time I showed them to you, with a few folks catching up and a few staying steady… and every single couple is rising in votes every day. As it should be. Fair and all that.

We’ll give it a couple days with the new IP blocking rule in effect, I’ll make sure no one figures out a new way to game the system in that time, and we’ll give you an update once we’re sure that no more chicanery is afoot. Keep voting…. No one’s gonna dilute your voices now! :)

26/03/2020

Due to a request I just received to read the couples’ stories before voting, I’ve made a new page on the site listing the tales of the Top 5 again. Figured folks could still get to it, but I’ve now made it easier.

Kinda figured everyone already knew who they were voting for at this point, but we’ve still got newbies! So, we are here to serve. :)

TELL ME MORE

26/03/2020

In the interest of transparency, I figured I’d show you guys a small example of the stuff that’s alerted me to something being “off” with the voting. I’ve blacked out the names of the contestants on here, because I don’t want anyone pointing fingers at each other… I’m just going by numbers and times. This is one of the SMALLER groupings I’ve noticed over the last few days (the bigger ones were simply incredible, but I didn’t bother checking IPs on them… I can do that later)… and I have a feeling there will be quite a few more once I get the full results in.

Please vote fairly. This is the stuff I’ll be looking at after voting is done. In order to not violate privacy laws, I blocked out the first 2 numbers of the IP addresses for this post.

26/03/2020

It has been brought to my attention that if the polling software blocks an IP address for 24 hours AND the folks voting were all on the same network with their various devices, this might stymie that. It was a valid point.

My suggestion, since we’ve sadly come to this necessity, is if you’re voting from mobile phones or a device that can access its own internet network, just get off the home wifi briefly while you cast your daily vote. Families are most certainly allowed to vote for their favorite couple… that’s what this is all about.

Once I go through the votes, I’ll keep this in mind. If see like 3 or 4 votes coming through from the same IP in a day (before today when I changed the protocol, anyway), but no real pattern to it, I’ll probably let it go. If I see, like I have the last couple days, 30-40 in a one hour period, and they’re all from the same address at a regular, calculable interval, those are going to be nuked.

Please let your family members know from here on out, if it says they can’t vote on their phone, try voting from another network when they’re doing it… like at work or something. That isn’t cheating. I’m not going after family and friends who want to support their couple… I’m going after folks who try to stuff the ballot using scripts and whatnot… THOSE are the enemy. :)

Take care, and keep voting!

25/03/2020

Update… I talked to OpinionStage, and did a few settings adjustments. Now it will block IP addresses if they try to vote more than once per 24 hours. It was supposed to be doing that already, but someone found a way around it. They’ll have a lot more trouble doing it now.

Once the contest voting is concluded, I’ll go through the poll logs, and anyone who tried to circumvent the rules will have their extra votes erased. It’ll take a little time once we get there, but at this point if I block votes based on a pattern, some innocent people would lose their votes, and that’s not what this is about. They’ll release all the complete stats to me only after the voting ends, so that’s just how this is going to play out, sadly.

Got to see the same pattern today as yesterday, so whoever’s trying seems pretty confident. This is the guy running the poll assuring whoever they are that they are wasting their time. I’ll manually go through EVERY bloody vote if I must and make sure this ends honestly.

Keep it up, non-cheating folks! I see more honest votes every day than the ones that set off the radar, so don’t be discouraged if your choice of couple looked low in count before. That will change possibly at the end of this (or might even before it ends)… so keep voting. :)

25/03/2020

Here’s your voting results update for the evening.

I’ve noticed several large blocks of votes coming in almost exactly every 30 seconds for one couple today. Like clockwork. That’s irregular. Not doing anything about it just yet, as I’ve got to trace IP addresses and see if it is just a wacky coincidence (that last time certainly wasn’t but whoever was doing that stopped, so I left it alone), but in my experience, scripts aren’t very smart and don’t try to disguise their actions very well… and we’ve got HUMANS watching this count and monitoring it for problems. It’s not like we can’t track this stuff.

We aren’t some giant corporation just giving stuff away… this contest was brought together by local vendors who just wanted to do something nice for their neighbors.

Let’s keep this fair for all the contestants. They’ve been good sports… everyone voting should be as well.

23/03/2020

Howdy, guys. I've been emailed a couple of times about this, so I want everyone to be clear on this.... when you vote for your favorite couple, the image that shows up right after isn't of the folks you voted for... it's whatever the program decides is first alphabetically.. it just automatically shows that image.

We understand that this can be confusing, but your vote went for whoever you clicked on. Thanks for taking the time to vote for these kind folks. I'm attaching an image of a graph of how the voting is going. Keep it up! We've got a fine race going here... let's see who wins when it's all over. :)

22/03/2020

Howdy, kids… here’s a screenshot update on how the voting is going. I’m going to do this every couple of days until we’re done… it’ll let folks know where they stand, and whether or not to call their second cousin’s mother’s former roommate to spread the word and get their vote up!

It’s looking like a fine and fair race right now… that pleases all of us. It could be anyone’s game… so keep playing. May the “most voted for” couple win! And even if you don’t win… always remember that THAT MANY PEOPLE LIKE YOU. That’s pretty awesome, right? :)

21/03/2020

Alright, anomaly solved. The guilty have been punished, yada yada. We’re back on… same things as before apply. You can vote every 24 hours. The cookie will make sure of that. Let’s get this thing on. Sorry about the wait… we’re just trying to keep things fair. It’ll be mid April when we stop the voting… if that changes, I’ll be sure to let you know here… but for the mean time… VOTE! Let’s get these folks married. :)

Alright, kids... here we are. Those 10 people up there above this are in the running to get a mostly free wedding. In Brooksville. Where you guys live. So, let's do it!

21/03/2020

And… our first anomaly. I’m going to restart the voting tomorrow. Irregular activity was rather obvious, so I’m pretty sure someone was trying to cheat. I’m doing IP traces as I type this, so I can figure out who is trying to mess with our humble little contest.

When a vote happens every 5 seconds on a post that is less than ten minutes old occurs, even a distracted person like myself is going to notice. I’ll work on finding out who is messing with the thing, and we’ll have a talk later. That’s the nicest way I can put it. And the most legal.

In the meantime, sorry about the delay, couples. I want this to be fair, and will fight to make sure that happens. Contestants, if you know some idiot who is trying to hack your way to victory, please tell them to stop. They’re not as good as they think they are… and they can be found. Let’s keep this light and fun… this is about marriage, after all!

I’ll post here when the contest is back up and going. My sincerest apologies to those who lost a few votes from this incident, but most of those were fake anyway. We’ll start fresh tomorrow. I don’t know why people like to try to cheat… it really doesn’t help anyone in the end of things.

21/03/2020

I love arguing with Wordpress and Facebook. It’s therapeutic. Now then...

VOTING IS NOW OPEN FOR THE FINAL 5! Cast your votes as you see fit, and let’s get at least two of these folks wed!

The rules are simple… you may cast one vote every 24 hours. Don’t cheat… I’ll notice. I’ve got evil robots watching the site for chicanery. Feel free to share this post with anyone you think would be interested in helping your favorite couple win… sharing is how our finalists got here, so keep that up!

Oh, and I’m keeping the results hidden this time. We don’t want anyone to get discouraged… just keep voting and do what you do. We had some last run that were high up there, dwarfing the others… and then the others caught up. I just figure without seeing how it’s going, everyone’s got a fair shot. It’s the same system as the first run… just no numbers to show once you’ve voted. If everyone does as they did in the preliminaries, I’m sure the results will be quite similar… but this is a contest. Let’s make it fun.

We’ll wind this up mid-April. Originally, our plan was to cut off voting on the 2nd of April, but I think we’ve got time to let you guys vote to your hearts’ content considering that the Coronavirus has made gatherings a pain in the butt and possibly illegal. I’ll discuss such with the folks who pay me to run this thing, and we’ll figure it out. In the meantime? VOTE! You can do it… I’ve seen you do so. :)

Cheers!
-Drew, the Guy What Runs the Site

Alright, kids... here we are. Those 10 people up there above this are in the running to get a mostly free wedding. In Brooksville. Where you guys live. So, let's do it!

21/03/2020

Voting will commence for the Top Five Ladies & Gentlemen very shortly… the poll is created and ready to go (you can find it on the website under the tab “Final 5 Baby! Vote Here!”). I’m just waiting for the internet to catch up so I can post the announcement here.

Sorry it took so long. We who are running this contest have day jobs as well. :)

18/03/2020

Well, all of the finalists have been notified of their finality. So to speak. :). So, without further ado, here are the top 5 couples to be voted on in the next 4 weeks or so, in no particular order (we had the stats up, and we know you guys can read) :)

Kacie & Carter
Kristy & Jeferson
Jenesis & Tyler
Carissa & Ryan
Britney & Brodie

(Apologies to Kacie & Carter… this whole time I had them titled as "Katherine & Biker Dude", because I was rushing when I was getting the couples up there and did read their whole story, but somehow messed up on the nicknames… but judging by their votes last run, people figured out who they were) :)

From here, I’m going to spend the next day or so setting up the final voting section, in the sheer hope that nothing is broken. We’ve had some digital hiccups along the way to this point, and none of that nonsense is allowed in the final stretch.

On March 20th, voting will resume. We’ll make an announcement on here and the website letting everyone know such, so contestants… ready your people. Form your armies… let’s get ready to RUMBLE!

(In a digital way not involving any physical crowds of 10 or more, because we at the Heart of Florida would hate to upset State Legislature or make the Coronavirus nervous… manners are important in these trying times. But then, so are votes) :D

17/03/2020

Okay, guys. Voting for couples is about to be turned off. We were supposed to stop it on the 15th, but figured since the Blueberry Festival is cancelled and now we’ve gotta finish this contest out and announce the results slightly differently, we’d give you all a few more days to vote.

The top five will be announced shortly! :)

11/03/2020

Update on the Top Header Picture on the Couple’s Voting page. I’ve had a talk with the folks who sell and maintain the voting service, and they say it’s just a glitch, and their Dev will fix it first thing in the morning. :)

11/03/2020

Oh, one additional thing. If you’ve voted in the past 24 hours, you’re not going to see the list again until 24 hours has passed by from your last vote. I could take that rule off, but then there would be nothing stopping folks from spamming the works. So, in the interest of fairness, be patient. I’m attaching a screenshot of what the list will look like for those of you who are in the 24 hour window still.

I had to log in using a proxy to be able to see it, so I’m just attaching the top part for reference. The percentages & whatnot won’t show up unless you vote, but… I don’t think I’m allowed to do that. So, I’ve gotta wait like the rest of you. I voted once yesterday because it was late and had no other way to test to make sure the dumb thing was working. :)

11/03/2020

We’ve had a few questions over the last day or so, as we changed some stuff around. So, here’s my attempt to address those.

I’d removed the ability for people to see how many votes and the percentage after voting, mainly because we didn’t wish to discourage some of the many contestants who are currently lower in votes than some our social media “Big Dogs”. You know who you are. :)

I’ve put the percentages and numbers back up there for one day, as one individual accused us of being “rigged.” That’s most certainly not the case, but whenever something is changed, questions arise. That’s human nature.

The only problem people are having is that once you vote when the percentages AREN’T there, the picture from the Brenna & Richard couple appears up top. That isn’t because they were necessarily voted for by you… the opinion plugin just chose the first picture in our group as the “cover photo.” I can see how that would be misleading. Trying to fight with the thing now to change that. If I can’t though…. Once I take the scores off again, no worries… your votes are going to whoever you voted for, whether or not I can figure a way to change the header image.

I’m from and live in Tampa… so I have no dog in this fight. My job is to keep things fair for everyone, but I also must answer to the folks who thought up this contest in the first place. We’re getting closer to the deadline, so I’ll give you more updates as I get them.

Cheers, folks!
-Drew

06/03/2020

It’s on. Let’s do this. Be sure to read the stories from our couples… they’re fun! Only one couple can win, but I wish the best to everyone.

The time has come, kids. Here are our favorite human beings who want to get married at a discount price in the heart of Florida, Brooksville. I’ll ask you to go and read over their profiles a…

06/03/2020

Gotta dig up everyone’s photo and upload them to the voting thing. That’s happening right now… and THEN? We can vote on the best Couple. No catfights allowed… just win honestly. :)

05/03/2020

Wordpress and I had an argument, but I’m human, so I won. HERE are Kinsey and Superman. They’d like to get married in Brooksville. Vote ‘em up and they can do that.

We both spent our lives dreaming of that Hallmark movie love thinking that it wasn’t out there…. until we found each other. We have found true love and happiness. We would love to have a nice…

05/03/2020

Jimmie & that guy he loves who he failed to mention the name of. Hey, I like Mimosas as well!
https://brooksvilletheheartofflorida.com/index.php/2020/03/05/jimmie/

We are a local native couple who both grew up here in Hernando County. We both share the same family values and have a hard and honest work ethic. We are both Realtors with Century 21 Alliance Real…

05/03/2020

Carissa & Ryan... that lucky fellow.
https://brooksvilletheheartofflorida.com/index.php/2020/03/05/carissa-ryan/

I met Ryan when we first started work for the same company on the same day. We just had an instant connection and people from the beginning thought we were an item, or should be. We finally gave it…

05/03/2020

Just an update. I’m almost done uploading the couples into the website, and when voting is set up, I’ll email all of you who entered to let you know. Except for that one person who DIDN’T agree to be communicated with. I can’t mention who they are, but if you know them… tell them to email me.

I want everyone to have a fair chance here, so that’s about to happen.

05/03/2020

Jordan & that lady who digs him
https://brooksvilletheheartofflorida.com/index.php/2020/03/05/jordan/

We met freshman year in high school and have been together ever since. Our relationship has always been strong but we’ve both been through very hard life struggles. We have a daughter together that…

05/03/2020

Sean & that crazy lady that loves him. They like adventure. Marriage is the craziest adventure of all... good luck, kids!
https://brooksvilletheheartofflorida.com/index.php/2020/03/05/sean/

I met my beautiful, soon to be wife while on a job in Florida, as she is a resident of Floral City. Right away I knew she was too good for me, but I somehow tricked her in to falling for this rough…

05/03/2020

Rachel & Mr. Lawton... she didn't give us his surname. But she's happy, and we're happy for them!
https://brooksvilletheheartofflorida.com/index.php/2020/03/05/rachel/

In 1990 I met the most amazing friend a girl could ever ask for. He moved in across the street from my parents home. He was a senior in high school and I was a sophomore. Shy and quiet and secretly…