Cash-strapped couple seeks sponsors to fund wedding

Courtney McKenzie and her fiancé Jamil Newell

A young couple from Florida, United States, has found the perfect way to organise their dream wedding without spending a penny. Courtney McKenzie and her fiancé Jamil Newell are opting for a corporate-sponsored ‘social’ wedding and honeymoon, which means their special moment will feature all sorts of product endorsements and ads, according to Essence, a wedding magazine published in the United States.

Courtney, who works in social media and runs a marketing company, is the brains behind the idea. “I thought, why not couple my two loves: my soon to be husband Jamil and my love for marketing?” she said.

The couple, who love travelling, will be getting married in December at their dream wedding destination – Thailand. After the wedding, they plan to spend the next 11 days travelling in South East Asia, doing exciting things like elephant trekking, scuba diving, and bamboo river rafting.

Once they decided on the plan, Courtney put together a press release and started sending it out to people. It attracted attention almost immediately, with the idea going viral on sites like Buzzfeed and Facebook.

They also set up a wedding website with a detailed itinerary of their travel plans, as well as packages for interested corporate sponsors.

“We have created several sponsorship categories that incorporate your amazing company in our one-of-a-kind social wedding,” Courtney and Jamil wrote on their website. “We will be hashtagging, tweeting and instagramming our way through Thailand to our over 30,000 combined social media followers and we want to include some of our favourite brands on our adventure.”

The top category is called the ‘title sponsor’ (price upon request), where a company can have its logo sewn on Courtney’s wedding gown and Jamil’s tuxedo. Brands with a smaller budget can opt for the $500 ‘bliss level’ package, which earns them signage display stands at the ceremony. All sponsors, irrespective of the category, will be promoted on the couple’s social media accounts.