Savings Tip #11: Find a Corporate Sponsor
Tanner |
Thoughtfully composed by Tanner Filed under: Wedding, Financial Planning, wedding sponsors |
Sure, a Coca-Cola themed wedding is not exactly what you might have dreamed of all your life. You also might not have pictured yourself saying your vows in front of a referee at a Foot Locker sports themed wedding. Well, you can’t always get what you want and weddings can be very expensive. If you have the right personality for this type of “fun”, “themed” wedding, you could save yourself tons of money and get a lot of free stuff.
Believe it or not, companies would love to have the opportunity to plaster their product name all over a big wedding that has tons of happy people attending. Weddings typically put people in a cheery mood and when someone is happy and sees an advertisement at the same time, they will probably associate that product with positive feelings, which is good for the company.
There are a few ways to pull this off and save thousands in wedding costs:
1) Trade your sponsorship for specific wedding services and products: Many times, if you find a less experienced photographer or a wedding photographer that is trying to expand their business, you might be able to advertise his services during your wedding in excahnge for free photos. This is a great idea, but probably will not work for more reputable photographers. It’s worth a try though.
You can also call bridal dress shops and flower stores and ask for the same deal.
2) Ask for money or gifts from non-wedding companies: “The speaker system that the DJ is using is brought to you by Best Buy”… Start calling every major company in your area and asking for them to give you some money to put their advertisement in your wedding website, the invitations, the guestbook, etc etc. It might be a little tacky, but that’s fine if you can save 25% of your wedding costs. Call as many companies as you can. Call 50 people a day. I am not even kidding! This is what one person who did this said:
“I contacted quite a few people a day, nearly 50,” she said, noting sponsors saved her more than $4,000 in wedding costs . “It really is a full-time job. You usually have to explain it to the vendors since this is still a new idea. In many cases, they’ve never heard of it.”
Important to Remember: You are going to want to “sell” this to all of the companies. You need to convince them that this will be a worthwhile opportunity for them to participate in. Tell them exactly how many people will be attending, where the ceremony will take place, the demographics of the attendees (only if they make decent money), how “6 of the attendees are getting married within a year and will need more wedding services”, etc. Make their mouths water with the thought of fresh customers. You, in a sense, need to present a “wedding business plan or business case” to them.
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July 12th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
What a great idea! I looked into it and found a great website that has tons of information to help you land a sponsor. It’s www.powersponsorship.com. My sweetie loves fast engines and I like photography so it gives us a wide range of companies to hit up. Personally, I’m hoping one of the camera companies bites before something like Hooker Headers, *UGH* but the whole idea is to have fun and save money right?Â