While getting married is one of the most exciting times in one’s life, it is also one of the most expensive events in one’s life. For Melanie D’Andrea and her fiancee Cortney Stanley, the hope is that their focus on that special day will be just on their love while the tab is taken care of by winning the Real Maine Weddings magazine contest.

D’Andrea and Stanley learned of the wedding contest at a wedding expo in January and submitted their video on Valentine’s Day. With the recent news that they are one of the top three finalists, chosen from 36 couples, the pair is working to spread the word about voting for them.

This sixth annual contest hosted by the magazine offers the winners a $100,000 “wedding” that includes three days’ worth of festivities, from a welcome party to a lavish rehearsal dinner to a complete wedding with all the details covered. The winning couple will be chosen on Sunday, March 20, based on a score that considers public voting and the votes of the partnering vendors, who are providing all the necessities for a beautiful wedding.

In the first round of voting, the couple received 13,000 votes, and they hope to keep up that momentum during the March 11-18 voting time frame. The couple is up against a couple where both partners have served in the military off and on throughout the last 26 years, making it difficult to make a commitment and settle down, and another younger couple who have already battled his stage 4 lung cancer together.

“It’s great to know all the support we are getting as a same-sex couple,” said D’Andrea. “It’s nice to be a part of this to show there’s a lot of people who are supportive and just recognize when two people are in love.”

D’Andrea, an Amesbury native, and Stanley, of Alstead, N.H., met in 2011 while they were both attending the University of New Hampshire and “haven’t been apart since” except for maybe two weeks, said Stanley. Self-described “outdoor junkies,” the two, who currently live in Hampton, N.H., often visit the ocean in Maine and very much enjoy York, Maine, where the winning wedding is set to be held on Oct. 21.

Ironically, that date is the day in between the day that the women proposed to each other in 2015 — D’Andrea surprised Stanley on Oct. 20 with a proposal, while Stanley popped the question on Oct. 23.

The future brides are excited about the possibility of winning the contest, which in keeping with a world that lives through social media includes options to have the public vote on the wedding dresses and other decisions about the wedding. The pair also has a Facebook group with nearly 700 friends all rooting for them.

“These ladies are amazing!” said D’Andrea’s sister, Theresa DaSilva. “They want to win this competition and show the world that an amazing wedding and even more, an amazing marriage, is for every couple out there no matter their gender or sexual orientation. “