Contributed Photo
Toby Thums, 39, of Baraboo, and his fiancee Denise Siedschlag pose for a photo at a friend’s private Halloween party.

BARABOO - Toby Thums didn't think Halloween was anything to lose your head over.

In fact, he didn't feel like investing much time at all in a costume. That is until his fiancee, Denise Siedschlag, had the idea to dress up as a headless bride and groom.

Toby, 39, of Baraboo, quickly embraced the holiday, and the couple spent a few weeks prior to Halloween designing their unique costumes. The decision paid off Tuesday when Toby learned he won first place in a nationwide costume competition sponsored by Cousins Subs.

Toby and Denise had a picture snapped of their gruesome getups at a friend's private Halloween party in Baraboo. They knew their outfits were good, even if they were quite literally a pain in the rear end.

"Sitting down was OK," Toby said. "But when I was standing up, the bars that hold things up were stuck down the back of my pants. It was kind of uncomfortable."

Toby began searching for an online costume contest to enter and wound up entering in the Cousins Subs online competition.

Members of the social networking Web site facebook.com could post their Halloween pictures on the restaurant chain's Facebook page, as long as they clicked a button to list themselves as a fan of Cousins Subs.

"Judging from the competition, I knew we had a pretty good chance of winning," Toby said.

He said the year's worth of subs is really a bunch of coupons that will pay for roughly one sub a week. But he said he'll have no problem using them all - not to mention the extra $500.

Judges were won over by the creativity and entetainment value, said Justin McCoy, senior marketing manager at Cousins Subs.

"One of the things I liked about his costume was that it looked like it was really homemade," McCoy said. "It just drew our attention the moment he posted it."

Henry Martinez, who owns the Cousins Subs on South Broadway in Baraboo, got his first glimpse of the costume Wednesday.

"I think it was pretty incredible," he said.