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Fairytale in New York

Rachel Leslie
27/12/2007

IT’S a fairytale of New York – for a wedding in the Big Apple now awaits an Alderley Edge manager  who promised his fiancee they would wed if he won the top prize in the company’s Christmas draw.

Gary Pilling, 46, customer relationship boss  at Chess  Communications, told partner Jo Armitage, 38, that if he drew the winning ticket in the company’s Christmas competition they would get married.

As part of the firm’s incentive scheme employees at the Heyes Lane business received raffle tickets for passing on business leads, going out of their way to help other colleagues or suggesting cost saving ideas.

Each ticket was then entered into the company’s draw at its Winter conference to win the prize of an all expenses paid trip to New York and $500 cash.

And Gary’s colleagues watched with baited breath as Gary’s proved to be just the ticket to win the draw and start a life of wedded bliss.

Gary and Jo who live together in Swinton met in 1998 when they were working at O2 and Jo was Gary’s line manager.

Gary said: “Jo was my line manager and after a year we moved in together to a rented house with her two children George 10 and Lauren 14.”

A year later, the pair bought a house together and have been planning to wed for the last three years.

Gary said: “Two years ago we went on holiday to Florida and we decided it would be great to get married in America and have been looking into it since.

“Winning this trip was a Christmas wish come true.”

Honouring his promise to marry his sweetheart Stateside, it is just a hop, skip and a jump for Elvis fans Gary and Jo, who plan to head to Las Vegas to tie the knot in a chapel of love before heading to New York to take up their prize and enjoy a honeymoon in the city that never sleeps.