Couple aim for NZ's first sponsored wedding

Sandra Crisp and partner John Taina already have 65 per cent of the cost of their wedding covered by sponsors.

Forget the proverbial free lunch - Sandra Crisp is well on her way to a free wedding.

The 28-year-old office worker and her partner, butcher John Taina, 24, have met with a strong response from businesses as they prepare for New Zealand's first sponsored wedding next April.

Three months after their wedding planner, Janet Hannah, began approaching potential sponsors, 65 per cent of the wedding's estimated $19,000 cost has been covered.

Sponsors have lined up to provide services ranging from the wedding disco, to the cake, to chocolate favours for the couple's 100 guests - goods and services valued at $12,000.

It was sports team sponsorship that put Crisp on to the idea.

"We didn't realise how much a wedding costs and I was getting a little disheartened because I knew that with what we have to pay now, it would be impossible."

With four children between the pair and $20,000 in student loans, sponsorship offered a way to pay for her dream wedding.

Crisp picked a wedding planner out of the yellow pages and tried her luck. "I thought she's either going to laugh at me or hang up, but Janet was lovely."

Crisp and Hannah said the enthusiasm from potential sponsors was a shock. Hannah took a package to local businesses which offered to name sponsors on the invitations and order of service, place business cards on the table and put links to sponsors' websites on a site being prepared - sponsored, naturally - for the big day.

The couple will also thank sponsors in the wedding speeches. "We have had an excellent response. It has been quite amazing," said Hannah, who had to choose from three photographers who offered their services.

Butterfly Creek director Mark Cummings, whose company is providing the reception venue and food, said as a new business, the "fresh idea" had appealed as a marketing tool.

With the wedding already attracting some media interest, he is confident Butterfly Creek's involvement will pay off as a branding exercise. "At the end of the day, it is a commercial decision." Normally, the venue would charge between $8000 and $10,000 for a wedding.

The company providing Crisp's wedding gown and flowergirl dresses, A Silver Sixpence Bridal, had different reasons for saying yes.

"I ran it past the boss and he said 'it's quite nice to give something back to the community'," said manager Lee Vao. "Once we got into it, we realised there was more in the way of sponsorship, like cards on the table - we hadn't realised how much they were going to do for us."

As the business had just shifted location to Flat Bush, Manukau, it believed any resulting exposure would be worthwhile.

There is scepticism about the sponsored wedding idea, however.

"I personally think consumers are smarter than that ... I don't see it as an ongoing advertising story, but it's an interesting one-off," said media buyer Starcom chief executive Paul Maher.

Dave Bibby, a senior lecturer in advertising and marketing at Auckland University of Technology, said it was a "ridiculous" idea from a hard-nosed, commercial point of view.

Sponsorship had enjoyed fast growth as a marketing tool and was a viable way to get noticed. It created the "halo effect": the goodwill created among, for instance, the fans of a sports team towards its sponsor.

"But when you've got a wedding, you have to ask how many people it is going to influence and, in my book, that doesn't stack up," said Bibby.

What about the media coverage generated by the novelty of a sponsored wedding? Advertising with similar novelty value, such as the TradeMe auction of advertising space on a pregnant Auckland mother's growing "bump", and the launch of a company called Pramotions, selling advertising space on pushchairs and prams and on mothers' clothing, also delivered some press coverage.

Bibby said even if a company was just trying to build brand awareness through such attention, it was still a questionable marketing decision.

"Just because you build brand awareness doesn't mean it is positive brand awareness. I could run down Queen St naked and get on the news - but my students would say I'm a nutter," he said.

Sponsors should ask themselves whether getting behind a novelty event would result in a repeat purchase.