INTERVIEW: Bride-to-Be Looking for Wedding Sponsors

Couples who want to get married but can’t afford their dream wedding are asking companies to help pay for their big day.

Companies are sponsoring couples with everything, from honeymoons, massages, plane tickets, venues, cakes, choirs, etc. What do they want in return? Exposure.

Samantha Hartley and her fiiancé are looking for cash donations and corporate sponsors for their big day on November 2018.

The Guelph duo are working towards reaching their financial goal using crowd-sourcing websites, one of them is called “Sponsor My Event”.

Samantha explains the type of exposure she is offering companies in exchange for sponsorship.

The 23-year-old bride-to-be explains that she is “fresh out of a post-graduate certificate program” and has been “unsuccessful in finding work”. Hartley says her time is also spent taking care of both her father, “who lost his wife and sister in an eight month time span” and her fiiancé’s mother who “had major surgery this past summer”. Sadly, Samantha’s mother is no longer with us.

“I have put all of my time and efforts into making sure that our parents are taken care of and, unfortunately, do not have the means to fund the wedding my fiance and I are looking at”, Hartley writes on the “Sponsor My Event” page.

While some people are criticizing the couple for not waiting until they can afford the wedding they want, Hartley explains that“We can’t turn to his mom and my dad right now [for money] it’s just not feasible”.

She tells CBC News, that asking companies for money isn’t really any different from asking your family members to help pay for the wedding, “it’s outsourcing it to different people”.
Some online critics are asking why not just elope at City Hall? Samantha explains.

Others asked, “why not just wait until they can afford to pay for the wedding themselves?”

Samantha says, so far, there has been no interest from sponsors but that’s not going to stop her from getting married.

Samantha says not all the comment online have been critical…

Samantha says she is open to having a company’s logo somewhere in the venue or on the menu, but one thing Samantha definitely won’t do?  “I kind of draw the line with any logos on my dress or the tuxedo”, she tells KiSS

On the “Hartley-Denis Wedding” page, Hartley shares some information about the wedding to potential sponsors:
“The event is a wedding between myself and someone who has helped me during the lowest part of my life. It is a celebration of two people who love each other and two families coming together to finally gather outside of a funeral.”

Why should you sponsor? (According to Samantha’s SponsorMyEvent Page)

My fiance, Chris, and I met during the summer of 2016 at work while I was home from school. He was my friend before anything else, being someone who had lost his father to cancer three years ago. My mother had just been diagnosed with stage 4 thyroid cancer at the beginning of the year, and he was the only person who really understood what I was going through. When we did start dating, Chris wound up being there for my entire family. He was the one who drove from Toronto to Guelph to pick me up after I found out that my mother had passed in December. Even though Chris had enough on his plate, he was always there to help my father if he needed it. And while Chris was there to support me during my time of need, I’ve stood beside him while he’s been in an on-going custody battle for his two children. For everything that he’s done for me, it feels like standing behind the man I love to support him is only a drop in the bucket compared to what he’s done for me. 

Having just graduated from my Post-Graduate Certificate in June, and waiting to write my licensing exam, I have been unemployed and unsuccessful in finding work. I am either under qualified, inexperienced, or over-qualified and not given a chance. Chris works full-time, sometimes 12 hour days, and comes home ragged. I often drive from Guelph to Whitby to help his mother who had major surgery done at the end of August, or to Toronto to help out my dad who not only just lost his wife but, recently, his sister as well. Given the fact that my father was recently in an ATV accident and is unable to walk, I find myself in Toronto more than I do at home. And there are often times where Chris drives out after work to give my father a hand as well.

I couldn’t imagine my life without Chris. I was absolutely over the moon when he proposed to me in August. However, with our limited resources, and the fact that we are also taking care of our parents, the wedding of our dreams is out of reach. The both of us envision a day for both of our families to get together and bask in a joyous occasion instead of all the tragedy and gloom that has hung overhead.

-Samantha Hartley (sponsormyevent.com)