Charlotte woman finalist in “Live! With Kelly” Dream Wedding contest

A Charlotte engineer (and her Pittsburgh-based fiancee) are finalists in the "Live! With Kelly" show's Hawaiian Dream Vacation, but not without a serious sob story.

Angela and Ryan could win a Hawaiian Dream Wedding courtesy of the "Live! With Kelly" show.

Angela Albertson, of Charlotte, N.C., and her fiancee Ryan Field, now living in Pittsburgh, are among five finalists for a Hawaiian Dream Wedding that will be broadcast on the “Live! With Kelly” show on Feb. 20.

Their story was featured during today’s “Live! With Kelly” program, and as expected, it’s a real tear jerker.

Albertson and Field met and dated in high school, but when their separate ways. Albertson ended up getting married to a man, Jake, who died of a brain tumor in February 2007, just 18 months after their wedding.

“He’d been through a lot of chemotherapy and surgery, but we always had hope. We always thought we’d get through it,” Albertson said.

Albertson and Field were able to reconnect during visits back to their hometown during Christmas.

But, last February, tragedy almost hit Albertson’s love life again when Field went into a diabetic coma in his Pittsburgh apartment and wasn’t expected to live.

“I wasn’t aware that I was diabetic; I’d never been diagnosed. I was just feeling kind of sick,” said Field, 32.

So, Albertson and Field, who got engaged in October, are hoping that winning the Hawaiian Dream Wedding will be a way for them to put the past behind them and start their lives together on the right foot.

“It would be a nice way for us to get past that stuff and move forward,” Field said.

The contest offers an expenses-paid trip to Hawaii for the wedding couple and 30 guests with all the bells and whistles of a traditional wedding. A bachelorette party, rehearsal dinner, wedding reception,ma seven-night honeymoon at Disney’s new Aulani resort and spa on Oahu, and spending money and gowns for the bride, attendants and mothers of the couple is all included in the $130,000 prize.

Online voting this weekend will determine the winners.

About Lindsey Johns

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss | View all posts by Lindsey Johns