Put a Ring On It: Wedding Promotions for Any Market

The Dream Wedding Big Giveaway

One option for a wedding contest is big giveaway where the winning couple receives an entire wedding. A contest like this usually has three phases, and is ideal for ensuring that your advertisers receive a lot of exposure.

Phase 1: The Couple

The first phase of a dream wedding big giveaway is to choose the lucky couple. This is usually a submission photo/essay contest. Newly engaged couples submit a photo of themselves, along with a brief essay about why they want the dream wedding, or even just how they met or their engagement story. Players then vote for the couple they think should win.

Phase 2: The Elements

Once the couple has been chosen, it’s time to get down to business. Phase 2 is all about your advertisers. In other words, it’s time to select all of the wedding details.

Have your contest prize sponsors each put forward a few options for the wedding elements to be voted on. A jewelry store would offer a choice between ring sets, a caterer might put forward three different menus, a bridal store several bridesmaids dresses, and so on. Have voters choose the rings, the dress, the cake, the flowers, the food, and even the honeymoon location. The more choices you offer up to your voters, the more invested they will be (and the more likely to come back and spend time looking at what your advertisers have to offer).

Voting during this phase of the contest can take place all at once, or you could choose to open up voting on one element at a time. No matter how you choose to run the contest, increase the exposure for your advertisers even further by putting ads all around the contest pages and sending out reminder emails with their logos when it is time to vote.

Phase 3: The Event

With a dream wedding big giveaway, the follow-up is just as important as the contest itself. By the end of the contest, voters will have become invested in the couple and the wedding that they have helped to shape, meaning they will be upset if they don’t have a chance to see how it all came together. Feature the wedding on air or in print, either as a live broadcast or a feature including the story of the couple and the wedding and lots of photos.

If a huge wedding giveaway is beyond your means or just seems like too much effort, you can always scale it down to a more manageable size. Instead of the whole three-phase contest, focus on either phase 1 or phase 2.

Use referral features & social incentives

By offering participants sharing incentives – such as extra chances to win for every person they refer to the contest – you can encourage social sharing and attract even more entries.