Crowdfunding your wedding may not be for everyone but it can be a great way to help cover some of the costs. Deciding whether to crowdfund depends on your comfort level with asking people for money. In the past few years crowdfunding has gained popularity and the idea of sharing costs with friends and family has become more accepted. I hope this trend continues. It is good for community and wellbeing. Giving feels good and sharing costs helps make life’s big events more manageable.
Check out my blog post on why Sharing Wedding Costs is a Win-Win
Let’s take a look at some of the considerations before you decide to crowdfund:
- Friends and Family: The bigger your network of friends and family the better chance you have at a successful crowdfunding campaign. You will also want to make sure that your social circle is the type of people who enjoy helping out friends and family.
- Uniqueness of Wedding: People like to donate to things that are different. We were able to get donations because we were having it on a boat in the bay and made it a fun event for everyone. Does your wedding have any aspect that sticks out or is different from other weddings you can highlight to get people’s attention?
- Location: Both crowdfunding and a cash gift registry are ways for people to get involved if they are not able to attend the wedding. If you have family and friends in locations far away from your wedding they may be more likely to donate because they know they will not be able to attend.
- Incentives: Do you have something you can give away or a way to provide an incentive for individuals donating to the wedding. You can have different levels of donations and depending on how much they donate, you can give them some type or memorabilia or do some something special to recognize them.
- Comfort Level: To do crowdfunding you have to be comfortable with it. There will be people that do not take it positively. Unfortunately, there are people that do not see anything wrong with taking a friend out and spending $100 on them, but turn their noses when asked to donate $100 to help make this big moment in life more manageable.
If you have made it this far and you still want to continue with a crowdfunded wedding, here are some tips to get the best out of it.
- Decide How Much: Decide how much you want to raise. You can do this by taking a look at your social circle and dividing it by how much you think they would be willing to donate. You want to set a realistic goal so that as the goal gets closer people will be more inclined to donate.
- Decide on Incentives: This can be difficult but it can also be fun. If you have a lot of people from your social circle attending the wedding you can tie incentives directly to the wedding. For instance you can sell “dances with the bride/groom”, “pick a song for the playlist” or even “get the flower bouquet.” You can be extremely creative here and you can limit the number of times any one thing can be purchased/donated to.
- Select Crowdfunding Website: Deciding which crowdfunding website you are going to use can be difficult. I have done a breakdown of crowdfunding website fees here: Four Websites to Consider for Crowdfunding Your Wedding. You will have to decide if you want the crowdfunding campaign to be private or public and select an option that has the best fee structure for your goals. Some sites are all or nothing while others have different fees depending on how much you earn. That is why it is important to set realistic goals up front and then review the fees to see what makes sense.
- Create Your Crowdfunding Campaign: Every site is a little different but they are all fairly easy to use. Typically you will have to provide some banking info and put in the details on your incentives, goals, story, etc… Make sure and take the time to do a good job with this. Be creative with your story and highlight the uniqueness of your wedding.
- Get the Word Out: Once your campaign goes live you will need to get the word out. This is typically done through social networking but depending on your social circle you can do what works for you.
- Monitor and Respond: Make sure and stay on top of comments that people are making on your crowdfunding campaign and social networks. Also, continue to get the word out occasionally throughout the campaign.
As I stated in the beginning, crowdfunding is not for everyone but it can be a great way to help offset some wedding costs. Crowdfunding was just starting to gain popularity when we had our wedding so we did not try it out but I have seen some successful wedding campaigns around the internet. I would love to hear your story if you try it out.