Four giddy couples of varying ages and life situations shuffled to the white carpet of a beachfront gazebo on Sunday morning, ready to hear which pair won the grand prize: a free wedding for them and 50 guests.

"Wow!" exclaimed Arielle Pacheco, who stood arm-in-arm with husband-to-be La'akea Wigen, fresh-faced with excitement despite the fact that they hadn't able to sleep the night before. "It's like 'Project Runway'!"

While Heidi Klum was nowhere to be found, the crowd could almost hear their hearts pound. Was it only the breeze along The Kahala Hotel & Resort shoreline that nearly took their breath away? Each nervously looked at one another and hugged their dearly beloveds as Island Life editor Elizabeth Kieszkowski came forward for the big announcement.

And the winners are ... Sunghoon Alex Cho and Primrose Valdez.

The pre-set date of March 31 also happens to be Valdez's birthday. To celebrate the moment, the pair linked arms and took sips of champagne, though Valdez was obviously overcome with emotion, and Cho so nervous he dropped his glass.

The couple of recently graduated nursing students will be taking time out of their studies for their board exams in February to plan their wedding, worth as much as $30,000, arranged by Parasol Events.

"I voted for them," confided Charlotte Norris, who with her fiance, Dan Dufrene, was also a finalist in the wedding contest. Norris and Dufrene of Kailua, who found love later in life, have already set an alternative date for their wedding: Feb. 29 — a Leap Year date.

Like other finalists, Brooke Reyes and Nolan West, who met while working at Cassis restaurant, said being part of the contest solidified their own plans to wed. "Probably later this year," Reyes said.

Pacheco and Wigen will also be setting a date soon, though their friends had teased the high school sweethearts that if they had won the contest, they faced the real question: "Do you really have to get married?" They've been together for eight years, and plan to marry soon, "but not in three months," said Pacheco, who plans to take advantage of offers from the assorted vendors for advice on their coming nuptials. (Wigen still has his master's to finish at Hawai'i Pacific University, which he hopes to complete in December.)

No couple walked away empty-handed: The Kahala Hotel & Resort is giving each runner-up couple dinner for two.

"You're all winners to us," said Laura Lewis of Parasol Events, who organized the giveaway. "... We're not done with everybody."

What did it take for Cho and Valdez to earn the top prize? For starters, it was having a great story: Valdez wrote an essay in which her fiance admitted he'd been a bit sneaky about getting digits from the pretty, petite brunette while they were in class together at Leeward Community College. He'd gone around class asking for telephone numbers, supposedly to start a study group. Strange how only Valdez showed up.

"Gee, where is everybody?" she jokes now, knowing how perfectly the ruse worked.

Plus, they've both just started a new phase of their lives as newly minted graduates of UH's nursing program. They graduated in December and are studying to take their boards to become registered nurses. Cho wants to work in an emergency room; Valdez, in an intensive-care unit.

It didn't hurt that they'd e-mailed friends around the globe, asking friends, family and even former co-workers to view their online video and cast a vote in their favor at The Advertiser's special Web site. At their graduation party in front of more than 100 people, they announced that they were among the four finalists, whittled from a group of 120 couples, vying for the wedding giveaway.

"We said they didn't have to give us a gift, just vote for us!" Cho said.

The pair went to work on the e-mail, suggesting that family, friends and former co-workers not only vote, but to start an e-mail tree to others, too — spreading from Hawai'i to the Mainland to as far away as Brazil.

"I was going to e-mail the chancellor of UH, asking to send a mass e-mail to vote for us," admits Cho with a laugh, "but thought maybe that wasn't a good idea, with everything else going on."

As they had left for the announcement ceremony on Sunday morning, Valdez's grandmother had been heading to the market with her mother. She called out to the couple, dressed in their Sunday best, how she wished them well.

"I can't wait to call her," said Valdez after the announcement, though she was still a bit dazed. "I can't remember anything, I'm so happy!"

The hardest part, beyond the waiting: keeping the list to just 50 people. (If Advertiser readers read the fine print, they know there is an option to increase the number of guests, at the couple's expense.)

With vendors on hand to meet all four couples, Valdez took advantage of the proximity of the makeup artist to find out how soon she should start getting facials (right now) and how often (every three or four weeks), so she looks her best by March 31.

But first things, first:

"I've got to go on a diet!" Cho said.