Wedding Saving Tip: Auction a spot in your bridal party in eBay
June 29, 2008 by Christine Gooding
Filed under Wedding Planning, Weddings and Honeymoons in the News
Nothing surprises me anymore. Engaged couples find unique ways to raise funds (or save for their wedding). This time, a bride got the idea to auction a spot in her bridal party to raise funds to pay for her wedding in eBay.
It worked.
The winner paid more than $5,000 for the opportunity! The person doesn’t even know the couple! Weird!
Being a bridesmaid can be expensive, as any woman who has been fitted for a dress she did not pick out, or spent hundreds of dollars for a plane ticket, can attest. But, then again, most bridesmaids know the bride.
Then, there is Kelly Gray and her fifth bridesmaid.
Ms. Gray, a Virginia Beach hairdresser, auctioned off the chance to be a bridesmaid in her April 2009 wedding on eBay. The winning bid on Wednesday was $5,700.
Ms. Gray, 23, had long dreamed of being a bride, but she and her fiancé, Karl Gau, could not afford the $7,000 wedding they have planned at the Virginia Beach Conference Center.
“While other children would say they wanted to be a teacher or singer when they grew up, I would always say that I wanted to be a beautiful bride!” Ms. Gray wrote on eBay.
She said she did not want anything fancy, no horse-drawn carriages or ice sculptures, just a three-layer cake and dancing. “I want a wedding,” Ms. Gray said in an interview. “Normal is expensive.”
Ms. Gray said she had tried entering contests, saving money and writing to talk shows to help pay for the wedding, but nothing worked. Her boss, Gwen Lala, came up with the idea to auction off a spot in the wedding party.
“I thought it would be fun,” said Ms. Lala, who said she had trolled eBay and realized people would pay for bizarre things. “They just have to stand up in the bridal party, and we hope somebody wants to come and do it.”
The winner, whom Ms. Lala would not identify, must also pose for pictures and the wedding video and join in “any other wedding activities.” The bridesmaid will wear an apple red dress and shoes of Ms. Gray’s choice. The dress is likely to be A-line and floor length, Ms. Gray said.
She might be renting a tux, however, as she is willing to have a bridesman. The winner can eat from the still-to-be-chosen buffet, but must pay all travel expenses.
Ms. Gray realizes she is taking a chance, but she and her fiancé are undeterred.
“I know some people out there are crazy,” she said. “We just want anybody who is willing to have fun. We’re fun, and we’re hoping someone won’t come in and ruin it for us.”
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With the high prices of food, healthcare, gas, utilities, etc., people need to learn to live within their means instead of doing what basically amounts to asking others to help pay for their wedding.
Offering advertising space at a wedding is really tacky. If a couple cannot afford an expensive wedding, don’t have an expensive wedding. We had a wedding with 50 guests because we couldn’t afford to have a larger wedding. If a couple wants a wedding, save up for it.
Sure, this was an idea someone had that worked because there is always someone out there willing to pay up, but even though people can sugar coat this as much as they want, this is basically organized begging.
Maybe my husband and I should auction space in our front yard for a sign so someone can advertise, and we can get money to put in a pool or landscape our home, buy a hot tub, or do any one of a number of things we cannot afford to do right now.
Whatever happened to taking responsibility for yourselves and your own expenses? If you can’t afford it, if you can’t save for it, then do without it.
Absolutely! After this story hit the news, I searched Ebay for similar listings, as I knew there had to be a slew of them.
I was not dissapointed.
There were a number listed for either a bridesmaid or a best man/groomsman. I put a couple on my Ebay watch list and……. well……..watched them.
The one for the Best Man started with a bid of $0.99 with no reserve. The day before the the listing ended, I bid on it~ $0.99. And lo and behold, I won it. I paid with an instant pay and waited to hear from the couple.
Two days later I still hadn’t heard anything from the happy couple, so I emailed them stating that I won the auction and instantly paid and was curious why I hadn’t heard from them with the details.
Another day or two went by and I got a notice from Paypal that my payment had been refunded, lol, with a note that said [paraphrase] “Oh, I had no idea that my husband used my Ebay account for this. How embarrasing, I have returned your payment”.
Yeah, right, the only thing that is embarrasing, is that they did not put a reserve on their auction, and it sold for $0.99. Obviously that would not have bought 5 sugar cubes for the Sweetheart Table, so they renigged, lol, and not very graciously, IMO.
If you are going to have the guts to virtually panhandle for funds for a party, have the guts to own it and be honest about it.
I don’t hold a lot of respect for people that beg others to pay their way, and I have even less for those that cannot be honest about it. They could have had the decency to write and say that they were hoping for more money (DUH!)and they really could not let the Best Man spot go for a mere $0.99, but thank you, blah, blah, blah.
But they didn’t, and only constructed another charade.
FWIW, I didn’t accept the refund from Paypal, and am awaiting their response to my email to them inquiring why they refunded the payment, or more to the point, why they renigged on the auction.
I am not holding my breath for an honest answer.