‘Over the moon’ as they win £2,500 ring for £20
COUPLE’S DELIGHT AT ENGAGEMENT LUXURY RAFFLE WINDFALL
A COUPLE from Bulwell snapped up a diamond engagement ring worth £2,500 – for £20.
Contracts coordinator Dean Wakelin said he was “over the moon” as the platinum and diamond white metal ring was handed to his fiancee Kim Jones yesterday.
He decided to give it a go after reading a recent Post story about the ring being raffled off online.
The 33-year-old, who paid for 10 £2 tickets, was delighted when he found out he had won.
He said: “I was searching through, saw it and thought ‘that’s quite interesting.’
“I thought ‘what a fantastic ring for the price,’ entered the competition and, thankfully, we won.
“It was a great moment, really happy.
“It’s a unique opportunity marrying my partner and to get a free ring it’s fantastic.
“We’ve never won anything that big before with that amount of value.
“With the year that everybody has had with Covid and everything else – for us personally, it’s been very difficult – it’s just a nice finishing touch in what’s been a bad year for everybody all round.
“I put 10 tickets on, worth £20 in total.
“It’s a ring retailing at £2,500 – we have got an absolute bargain.”
Mr Wakelin, who proposed to Miss Jones, 34, on Christmas Eve, said she’d been his “rock” for the last 16 years.
“We have three beautiful children,” he said.
“I love her so much. Hopefully we will stay together forever. She is my soulmate.”
Miss Jones, a catering assistant, of Lido Close, said: “He proposed on Christmas Eve.
“The ring he’s got me is a plain ring. He wanted me to pick one myself. So it’s ideal, really.
“I actually didn’t know he bought 10 raffle tickets. He didn’t tell me that until he heard we’d won.
“It was a lovely surprise.” The ring was raffled off by Aspire Fine Jewellery Ltd, a family business based in Gotham, specialising in wedding rings.
The company has been “massively hit” by the pandemic – with weddings cancelled and orders for rings postponed.
The family behind the business also meet customers faceto-face at wedding fairs and corporate events – which, again, have been called off because the pandemic.
They decided to try raffling off the ring, using the website raffall.com, after spotting someone else auctioning off a house.
Director Kevin Smith, 51, who runs the jewellers with his partner Sharon Jordan, 46, said: “We set the limit at 1,200 tickets.
“We set it at 1,200 because if somebody really liked the ring, and wanted to buy all the tickets, they could do that and still spend less than if they bought the ring outright.
“It just made the raffle more appealing. We sold all 1,200 tickets. It was due to finish on February 13. We set the raffle to run for three weeks but it sold out within a week.”
Mr Smith added: “It was virtually drawn automatically the minute the last ticket was sold.
“We had entries from Aberdeen, Glasgow, right down to Cornwall – all over the place.
“It worked so well that we’ve just set another raffle up.”
Mr Wakelin added: “I’m over the moon.
“We are both delighted, really grateful to the Post and to Aspire, really pleased and really happy.”