Have dreams of a Newport wedding? This giveaway could make that happen for a lucky teacher

A lucky teacher in the local New England area could get married for free at Newport’s newly rebranded Harbor Island Resort next year after winning the hotel’s recently announced giveaway.

Harbor Island Resort, formerly known as Gurney’s Newport Resort and Marina before it was sold to Pebblebrook Hotel Trust in summer 2022 for $174 million, announced the giveaway on May 3 in honor of National Teacher Appreciation Day.

“We really just want to be more involved in the community than the property has been in years past, especially as we experience this rebranding,” said Marketing Manager Nicole Rugg.

The hotel is accepting applications from couples, one of which must be a preschool through 12th-grade teacher in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or Connecticut—the hotel’s three main local markets—on its website until June 3. The giveaway includes a waterfront wedding ceremony on Sunday, May 12, 2024, a cocktail hour with hors d’oeuvres, a four-hour reception with a three-course plated dinner and prosecco toast, an open bar for five hours, a getting-ready room for the day and a bi-level wedding suite for the wedding night. The complimentary wedding can accommodate up to 50 guests.

The winner will be selected by raffle and notified on June 9, 2023.

Rugg said they decided to host a wedding giveaway rather than a vacation or something else because weddings are a major component of the resort hotel’s business. The hotel hosts anywhere from 40 to 50 weddings per year.

“We’re just looking for ways to not only be involved in our community but just to give back as much as we possibly can and recognize important members of the community and our local heroes,” said Rugg. “(Teachers) are a population that really deserves it, so we just want to recognize them as much as we could.”

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Newport Harbor Island Resort, holding wedding giveaway for teachers