How To Get A Free Wedding With Wedding Sponsors
Source: MakeMoreMoney
I want to talk about how to cut the cost of your wedding by thousands of dollars, or even potentially get your entire wedding completely paid for.
At the very least, you should be able to get a lot of free stuff for your wedding.
So how does this work?
With wedding sponsorship.
Wedding sponsors are people or companies that will give you free products and services to use for your wedding. Some examples of things they can give you are: free wedding cake, free wedding dresses and tuxedo’s, paid for honeymoon trips, and flowers.
Now you might be thinking “Why the hell would companies give out free shit?”
Simple.
Companies will VERY EASILY give you free stuff or provide you a free service IF you can help them make more money down the road.
How do you help companies make more money? You give them exposure through ADVERTISING.
I want you to take a second and look at it from a company’s point of view.
For the most part, it is very expensive for companies to “get their name out there”. Like any real business, they’re looking to make more money and attract more customers. This is where you step in. YOU can help them do all of that by advertising their name/brand at your wedding. In exchange, they will gladly provide you with free services/products.
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What Types Of Things Can You Get Wedding Sponsors For?
You can get wedding sponsors for virtually anything that is related to weddings.
I’ll give you some examples of people & places where you can get wedding sponsors:
- Photographers
- Videographers
- Florists
- Party Supple Stores
- Catering Companies
- Reception Halls
- Churches
- Dinner Halls & Restaurants
- Wedding Cake Bakeries
- DJ’s
- Travel Agencies
- Invitation Makers & Printing Companies
- Dress & Suit Rental Companies
- Limousine Companies
How To Find Wedding Sponsors
Finding wedding sponsors is pretty easy. They are everywhere around you. You find them exactly the same way as if you were paying for the product/services of the company. For example, you could find potential places for your dinner by doing a google search for “best places for a wedding dinner in Boston”, just like you would normally if you were not looking for a wedding sponsor.
The best thing to do is to find local companies that cater to weddings. You can ask your friends for recommendations, visit a mall, or search for companies online. Make a list of them along with their emails and phone numbers.
How To Get Your Wedding Sponsored
Now that you have a list of businesses that you can reach out to for potential wedding sponsorship, you need to think about WHAT you can do for them.
This is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing about getting your wedding sponsored. So I’ll say it again…
…You need to think about what you can do for your potential wedding sponsors. You need to think about HOW you can get them exposure for their business. Without this, they will NEVER agree to sponsor your wedding.
I’ll give you some ideas of how to encourage your potential wedding sponsor to sponsor you.
- Have a big wedding: Weddings with a lot of guests means companies can reach a larger audience. It means more eyeballs on their business and that’s always a good thing.
- Create a website for your business: I would make a website/blog documenting your wedding adventures and how these lovely companies are helping you get your dream wedding with their deliciously elegant wedding cakes, crisp fitted suits, mouth watering catering menu items, and beautiful reception hall. Take gorgeous photos of it all to show the world that they NEED to use these great companies when they have their own wedding.
- Put company branding/logo on wedding invitations: Maybe on the back of the invitation card, so it won’t look too tacky and promotional. The same thing with the wedding program or place setting cards.
- Put company branding/logo on napkins
- Put company branding/logo on wedding favors
- Create a gift bag for your wedding guests to take home. In this bag, place company promotional products that your wedding sponsor provides you, or business cards, or anything that would help a company reach a new audience.
- If you own a store/restaurant or anything that has customers, display a logo by the cash register, or a poster of wedding sponsors somewhere.
- Agree to email your co-workers and recommend your wedding sponsor
- Create a Candy Bar at your wedding, and have signage promoting a brands candy.
- And the last idea (which is a HUGE one) is if you have a blog or social media account that gets a lot of visitors, especially the type of people who get married, agree to promote them on it. This would be HUGE for your wedding sponsor and the exposure they can get can pay them back many times MORE than what they are actually giving you for free.
How To Successfully Get A Wedding Sponsor To Sponsor You
Remember that list of sponsors I told you to make? Well, take that list and start making phone calls or emails. You could also write a letter, but that takes more time and costs money.
I really prefer to call business or email them. Don’t be afraid to do this. You may think you are “bugging” them or being inconvenient or you’re scared they may reject you. After all, getting sponsorship seems like a weird thing to do for some people…
But take a step back and look at it from this angle: If someone were to call you and said they could legitimately secure you a 20% pay raise and all you had to do was help them grow their business by handing out their business card to 50 people at the office, would you do it? F*** yea you would.
So do you just wanna call them and say “hey, I am looking for people to sponsor my wedding. Would you like to sponsor my wedding?”
Hell no!
When you are calling businesses with your wedding sponsorship inquiry, you NEED to deliver a benefit.
TELL THEM HOW YOU CAN HELP THEM. Propose to them how you feel you can show off their business/brand and what you would like in exchange for it.
At the end of the day, it boils down to this: Help me and I help you back.
It’s a Win/Win.
The Downsides Of Wedding Sponsorship
There aren’t really too many downsides of getting free stuff for your wedding through sponsorship.
The biggest downside could potentially be the advertisement of companies. You want your wedding to be tasteful and beautiful. Not a store window at the shopping mall.
How much advertising you do will be a negotiation with the wedding sponsor. It’s up to you how much sponsorship you want at your wedding. The more a brand/company can display their business, the more likely they are to sponsor your wedding.
I think little signs are tasteful and very informative at the same time.
For example, you could contact local wedding cake bakeries and tell them if they were to bake you a free cake, you would put a small sign in front of the cake that lets people know what type of cake it is, the company who made it, and maybe a link to their website. And/or you can leave business cards in front of the cake too.
Another downside is the social stigma you may get from some people. Let’s face it, some people will have a problem with you getting free shit for your wedding. They make think you are cheap. They may think weddings need to be 100% paid for. They may think they shouldn’t have to get you a gift since you got so much of your wedding for free.
You can’t control peoples beliefs. Nor should you. But just realize that some people may not like it. And it will be something you’ll need to deal with.
Creating a wedding sponsorship also takes time. You’ll need to reach out to companies and also negotiate the terms of the sponsorship. This can be very tedious and intimidating for some people.
But hey, overall, if you can get a free venue to host your dinner, or cater your food, or a professional to take photos of your special day, you’ll easily save THOUSANDS of dollars. 10,000 or more potentially.
I definitely feel it’s worth the work. I think at the very least, its something worth “throwing out there” when you plan your wedding day. You don’t have to sponsor EVERY part of your wedding. But I think certain items, like the wedding cake, makes complete sense to try and get sponsored.
Summary Of Getting Wedding Sponsorship
Getting your wedding sponsored is about helping a person or business grow their company by exposing them to people who may use their product/service in the future. It’s about helping companies advertise.
In exchange for this exposure, they will gladly help you lower the cost of your wedding by giving you free products and/or services. Or perhaps heavily discount some things for you.
At the heart of making wedding sponsorship work is to communicate very clearly to business HOW you will help them advertise their business. If you show them how much they will gain by sponsoring your wedding, you can expect to find yourself a lot of happy sponsors and cheaper wedding costs.
What is your opinion of wedding sponsors? Do you think it’s right or wrong? I’d like to know if it is something YOU would do for your wedding. Tell me in the comment section below.
