In my last post, I alluded to wedding planning, and I wasn’t just saying it drop hints to my (then) boyfriend. I’m really getting married! Don’t run – this isn’t going to turn into a wedding planning post, I promise. However, I have to say it: weddings are expensive. Why?? Is it parental pressure, childhood dreams, or unrealistic expectations? Probably a little bit of everything. However, have you ever thought about having your wedding entirely paid for by someone else? Not, not the Bank of Mom and Dad. I’m talking about getting a company to pay for your wedding. Don’t look at me like I’m crazy! This is something people actually do! With an average wedding cost of $28,000, some couples have been savvy enough to harness the power of company marketing and sponsorships to get their weddings entirely paid for. Would you do the same?
How to Get a Wedding Sponsor
Getting your wedding sponsored takes a lot of effort – much like planning a wedding itself. If you want to get sponsored, you should probably set up a wedding website. If it looks like this website, even better! Yes, Sponsorourwedding.com is a real site from real people who were looking for companies (or TV shows) to sponsor their wedding and honeymoon. If you’re looking for the big bucks, you’ve got to make a compelling website that shows you and your fiance having lots of fun and, hopefully, looking pretty. Yes, sorry to say you’re probably more endearing if you and your fiance are conventionally attractive. Just look at those two! You could also use a site, Wedding Sponsorships, that will send you a kit that will tell you how to go about getting your wedding sponsored. While I haven’t checked out this kit for myself, it seems to highlight contacting corporations to sponsor your wedding, which, while a lot of work, could turn out to be pretty lucrative if you have the right pitch! It’s Table of Contents also discusses “How to get your sponsor to consider backing a loser” that I’m not too sure about… are they talking about your future spouse being a loser? Joking aside, having your wedding sponsored by the right people could make a lot of financial sense. If there was a company you’d like to work with, you could approach them about sponsoring a portion of your wedding in exchange for featuring their logo, perhaps in the corner of your invitations.
Why Companies Would Sponsor a Wedding
While it may not make sense to some (me included, but I’m just an introvert like that), wedding sponsorships can be very profitable for businesses as well by generating buzz. In the case of the couple from SponsorOurWedding.com, companies that sponsored their wedding were promoted not only on the couple’s website, but in many media outlets across the country/world, including the Today Show, Essence, and Buzzfeed. In addition, it’s an easy and cheap way to get their product in front of people. For relatively little money, companies can get their name in front of potentially hundreds of people. For a newer or smaller business, this helps keep marketing costs low and buzz high. After all, it’s not every day you attend a wedding that is sponsored by The RideShare Guy (just kidding, Harry’s not sponsoring my wedding… yet… ;)) If you don’t want your wedding sponsored, you could still get a discount on your expenses by bartering. If there’s a company you’d like to have cater your wedding, but they have a horrible website or tons of grammatical errors, and you’re a good web designer or editor, offer your services in exchange for their services! The least they can say is “no.”
Is Wedding Sponsorship the Future?
Given the high price tags of some weddings, it might make sense for people to partner with companies to at least get some of the expenses reduced. It could be a win-win: a company can get cheaper promotional material by providing invitations with their logos or other swag. Companies could take photos of guests (with their consent) pictured with their products, and some of those photos could be of just the bride and groom. To some, it may seem like gross materialism. After all, if you can’t have the wedding of your dreams, shouldn’t you just scale it down? However, everyone is different and some people can’t picture their big day without all the extra pomp and circumstance. Personally, I wouldn’t ask for sponsorship of my wedding, although bartering is pretty intriguing. In the end, if it came down between putting yourself in debt for a big wedding, or having Apple sponsor some aspects of your wedding, I’d go for the sponsorship. Just as long as Apple’s sponsorship doesn’t require tattooing the Apple logo on my cheek!
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Personal Capital lets you see all of your accounts in one convenient place. Sign up now for free.Would you ever consider asking a company to sponsor your wedding? What do you think of the (potential) trend of asking for sponsorships to pay for wedding expenses? If you’re already married, did you ask for sponsorships or try bartering to reduce costs?
Interesting topic! No, I wouldn’t ask for a sponsorship – a little bit too cheap and a little bit too desperate. But people are all different and some might think there is nothing wrong with it)
I would be concerned that some guests who don’t know us well enough would think it’s tacky… goodness, my parents would probably think it’s tacky, and they know I’m frugal! As usual, money is such a taboo topic that it would be hard to explain a sponsorship at your wedding. I see what you’re saying!
I would had totally been okay with our wedding being sponsored by a company. I can picture it now, right in the middle of a great song…
And we briefly interrupt this amazing song to talk to you about…blah, blah, blah company. Oh and by the way the open bar is made possible because of this ad.
Cheers!
Haha, that is a great attitude! Hey, depending on how well everyone knew you, they might have expected you to be that frugal and get a sponsor for the wedding. Some guests wouldn’t have batted an eyelash 🙂 I think for the right party, this could be a great idea.
I just don’t get it. I would rather have a small wedding that we could afford and not have to have banners or logos around than go all out with a wedding we couldn’t afford and try to get sponsors. Planning a wedding is stressful enough, I wouldn’t want to be bothered with having to try to find sponsors on top of it.
Also, I wonder if it got so much buzz simply because it is an outside the box idea. If this would become standard, I doubt a lot of news organizations would keep reporting on it.
Don, that’s such a good point. With all the time needed just to plan (and save up for) a wedding, finding sponsors would just be another time-consuming task to add to your list. I think if more people started to ask for sponsors, it would become less novel. However, a whole new industry could pop up, devoted specifically to matching brides and grooms with sponsorships. Just think, the more you tweet about your wedding, the more companies would want to sponsor you!
I absolutely WOULD consider having my wedding sponsored. (I actually wrote a bit about it in a yet-to-be-published post, too!) I wouldn’t want to have everything sponsored and branded, but there are certainly opportunities to make some extra cash without being obnoxious about it 🙂
Amanda, I can’t wait to read your post! I’m really curious how you would do it and how you would go about asking companies. It seems like an interesting and innovative thing to do, but I’m not gusty enough to do it 🙂