Brides can be beautiful, elegant and graceful. But they can also be survivors and fighters.
Women teamed up at “A Party With A Purpose” at the Chattahoochee County Club in Gainesville on Sunday in an effort to raise awareness about breast cancer.
The $15 a person fee granted access to the bridal expo, which included 24 wedding professional companies, as well as a silent auction, a runway show provided by Christi’s Bridal and much more.
The fee went toward benefiting Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation, an organization that is dedicated to the awareness of breast cancer and helping dreams come true for metastatic breast cancer patients.
“Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation takes women that are in stage four breast cancer, so they are terminally ill, and they grant them a wish,” said Sherri Christensen, the owner of Soireés Southern Events, who was the organizer of the event. “They will send them and their families on a vacation or give them a spa day. It is something that the woman needs or wants that will be her last memory.”
Christensen points out that although it is important to conduct research on breast cancer, it is also important to take care of the living.
“Most companies focus more on research and development, so this money will go toward helping the women have a little better of a life before they pass on,” Christensen said. “This gives us an opportunity to be human and be generous with our love and our money and take care of someone else other than ourselves.”
Christensen said the wedding professionals were generous with their time, all of them wanting to create a wonderful event to raise money for the breast cancer foundation.
“I’m proud of my community, and I think it is important that everyone knows how hard these people have worked, not just to put money in their own pockets but to really help and support the community as a whole,” she said.
As future brides chatted with wedding professionals, 13 models prepared to walk down the runway.
Christi Franklin, the owner of Christi’s Bridal & Formal Wear in Dawsonville who was in charge of the models, said it is good to help promote the awareness of breast cancer since a lot of people have family members or friends who have had some type of history with breast cancer.
Antoinette Baker of Buford was one of the models who wore three wedding dresses in the runway show. Her mother-in-law had breast cancer and has been in remission for five years.
Baker, who is 27, believes young women cannot have the “it won’t happen to me” attitude when it comes to breast cancer.
“When you think of breast cancer you need to think about how it affects everyone and not just women over 60 who are grandparents,” Baker said. “It affects young women, too, but women who have breast cancer do still get married — their lives don’t stop just because they got the cancer.”