And the Winners of the Loews Hotel Wedding Contest Are…


Emily and Jose

Emily and Jose

Earlier this year we announced that the Loews Hotel here in Philly was giving away a wedding to one deserving local couple who has “shown their love to the City of Brotherly Love or surrounding counties by giving their time or making a change.” And after reading all of the amazing submissions, a winning couple has been chosen!

Congrats to Emily Golomb and Jose Sabalbaro!

Emily and Jose met six years ago while on a coed soccer team in Washington, D.C., and moved to Philly the following year for Jose to attend Temple Law.

Once they were settled in, Emily began volunteering at The Franklin Institute—she eventually took a full-time position in the marketing department there—and Jose ran an after-school soccer program for underserved youth in West Philly while utilizing his native language skills (he’s fluent in Tagalog, the native language of the Philippines) as a volunteer translator for Philadelphia VIP, an organization that provides free legal services to low-income families.

More recently, Jose—he’s now an attorney at Archer and Greiner—began volunteering with Big Brothers Big Sisters in Camden County and continues to help raise money for charitable organizations throughout the city. Emily currently works as the director of marketing at the National Constitution Center and spends her free time as a volunteer dog walker at Saved Me (they adopted their puppy Dempsey from there in January).

The couple got engaged in Rittenhouse Square in December 2014—Jose and their friends and families serenaded Emily with their version of Sara Bareilles’s “I Choose You”—and are thrilled to be adding another chapter to their Philly love story with a dream wedding at the Loews. “We are still on cloud nine from the announcement,” says the bride-to-be. “We are so grateful for this opportunity, and we will cherish every second of it!”

We can’t wait to see how their wedding comes together later this year!

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