Trish Aristone and Linda Jo Bird were married on Nov. 22 at Bally’s Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. The couple won an Instagram video contest sponsored by Caesars Entertainment and received a wedding package valued at $50,000 — enabling them to have the wedding of their dreams.
The ceremony and reception at Bally’s, well attended and much celebrated by 150 friends and family members, was followed by a Caribbean honeymoon to Curaçao, an island off the coast of Venezuela.
Aristone, 38, a director of reimbursement and customer service at a home health-care agency, and Bird, 48, a quality-assurance specialist for a small IT company, met on MySpace in January 2007. They look back and laugh about it now.
“We know, of all the places, MySpace,” Aristone joked. “But a week later we met at PJ Whelihan’s in Maple Shade, N.J. One of my friends was playing there that night. The rest is history.”
“We were smitten with one another from the beginning. I cancelled my other dates that week,” Bird added jokingly. “Trish is the most patient person that I know. It’s probably one of her best qualities. Not to mention, she is a really smart and caring person, just very nonjudgmental. That’s what I love about her. She is just perfect for me.”
“LJ is also perfect for me,” Aristone said. “We have so much in common but we are opposite in a lot of ways so we balance each other out. LJ is kind to everyone, beautiful. She is patient with me even though she has no patience. We are kind of like a yin-yang situation. Everything just clicks with us. Arguments don’t even last long with us. We don’t hold grudges. It’s just a really easy relationship. I’ve never been happier in my life.”
It didn’t take long for the couple to decide they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together.
On their three-year anniversary in January 2010, the couple got engaged at the fountain in front of the Lincoln Center in New York City.
“I surprised LJ,” Aristone said, “and popped the question with my grandmother’s ring. I already had the blessing of both our families. Of course, LJ said yes.”
However, marriage was not yet legal in their home state of New Jersey and they decided to wait until it was.
“We weren’t in a rush,” Aristone said. “When it became legal in October 2013, we started coming up with ideas. Then later on, in March, we heard about the contest that Caesars was having.”
The “Love is Love $50,000 Giveaway” contest asked same-sex couples to share why the prize should be theirs in an Instagram video. Aristone and Bird took a unique approach, and centered their video entry on marriage equality. In the end, it paid off.
The couple, affectionately known as “The Birdstones” (a combination of their surnames), currently resides in Merchantville, N.J., with their “dog-child,” a Shih Tzu named Dixie.
To view the @birdstones2be video entry, search Instagram using #loveisloveinac.