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Some brides have found a new way to ring in their big day.
With the cost of weddings on the rise, many brides have taken a page out of the influencer handbook by finding sponsors and brand deals to help pay for their weddings.
In 2026, the average cost of a wedding hit $34,200, a 22 percent increase from 2021, according to The Knot, which surveyed over 10,000 couples getting married in the United States.
To offset these costs, even brides with smaller social media followings have found that they can walk down the influencer aisle to leverage their influence for wedding sponsorship cachet.
Take, for instance, 29-year-old marketing professional Arlesia McGowan, who quickly grew her TikTok following from 2,000 to almost 16,000 after a video trying on wedding dresses went viral. As she explained to the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Aug. 23, “This niche does so well.”
McGowan was able to negotiate various sponsorship deals, having The Knot underwrite the costs of her invites, picking up free bridesmaid dresses and groomsmen tuxedos and even getting her own wedding dress for free from CBTK Bridal in Detroit. She noted she was saving thousands of dollars through the deals.
And both brides and brands have certainly heard the wedding bells.
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“It’s the most effective way of marketing,” Briana Severson, CMO of the wedding planning platform Zola, told the WSJ, adding that when a couple announces they’re engaged, “it’s like they’ve set up a giant billboard.”
In fact, Zola even paid 25-year-old Indianapolis bride Naomi Hege—who has 3,000 Instagram followers—$350 to post about her wedding on their platform.
And that wasn’t all Hege was able to get, as she told WSJ she was being paid $600 per post from her local nail salon and waxing parlor for content related to her wedding.
“Every partnership that comes in where I get money is going to the wedding,” Hege explained. “After that, it’ll go to buying a house.”
Of course, the bigger a bride’s following, the bigger her brand deals, like Brigette McHale, better known by her online moniker Acquired Style. The 29-year-old boasts almost three million followers across her social platforms and had her bachelorette party sponsored by AI mirror seller Swan Beauty. The company provided her with a private jet to St. Barts and a villa, among other free items. And for an influencer with as large a following as McHale, she could easily earn between $50,000 and $150,000 for brand collabs, according to WSJ.
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And the sponsorship was worth it for Swan Beauty, whose CEO and co-founder ColbyMitchell told WSJ the bachelorette party generated new business for the company, adding, “It was like a reality show all weekend.”
Still, despite the sponsorship and brand deals, some brides want to make it clear that they’re not saying “I do” to an actual profit from their weddings.
Influencer Adriana Fernandez—who has over 108,000 followers—explained to WSJ, “I don’t think people realize—even if you get some stuff sponsored the wedding is still insanely expensive.”
For more influencers who have been candid about their own big paydays outside of the wedding industry, keep reading.
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