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.

“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. 

And the sponsorship was worth it for Swan Beauty, whose CEO and co-founder Colby Mitchell 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.

Bradley, who documents ways to save and make money, shared that he earned $58,857 on OnlyFans in 2025, as well as $123, 933 on content creating as an influencer with 1.5 million TikTok followers.

The content creator said in an August 2025 Instagram post that she earned over $1 million on OnlyFans in three hours, less than a week after turning 18.

Tay shared a photo of her alleged earnings, in which she pocketed $1,024,298: $486,558 from messages, $511,003 from subscriptions and $26,736 in tips.

Kim Zolciak-Biermann's daughter is making her way an influencer, sharing on her Bravo show Next Gen NYC that she makes $1,000 per sponsored post on TikTok.

“Now living in damn New York City, I need to be making a lot more money than I was making in Atlanta,” she said in a July 2025 episode. “Right now I need to be doing everything that I can to generate even more money.”

Ariana—who inked her first brand deal at age 14—knows it can be lucrative, saying, “You can get paid astronomical [amounts] to do a story or do an Instagram post, and I made quite a bit of money.”

The labor and delivery nurse, who posts about her life as an Orthodox Jew in New York City, shared in June 2025 that a sex toy company once offered her $100,000 to do advertisements for them, which she turned down. The deal would've included two in-feed Instagram posts, two TikTok posts, two Instagram Story posts and two YouTube integrations.

However, he explained that he mostly doesn't keep that money for himself. 

"In my actual bank account, I have less than a million dollars," he explained during an appearance on the Diary of a CEO podcast at the time. "I just like to reinvest it all."

As of January 2026, he shared he has "negative money," despite his estimated $2.6 billion net worth.

“I’m borrowing money. That’s how little money I have,” MrBeast told the Wall Street Journal. "Technically, everyone watching this video has more money than me in their bank account if you subtract the equity value of my company, which doesn’t buy me McDonald's in the morning."

The Dance Moms alum revealed that she made "six digits a month, easy" on YouTube videos as a 13-year-old. She added in the 2024 documentary Child Star that she now posts up to 300 times a day on Snapchat as part of her influencing career.

The TikToker revealed he has a net worth of over seven figures.

"You guys can keep calling me annoying," he quipped in a July 2024 video. "Being annoying has made me a millionaire."

The makeup artist revealed he earns $50,000 when he hosts a TikTok live—which he does four or five times a week—through selling cosmetics and gifting from fans.

"I'll make bacon in the morning and make $50,000," Jeffree told the Cancelled podcast in November 2024. "There's some times where I don't sell at all, and I'll just make bacon in my kitchen, in my bathrobe, in my little slippers, we'll just hang out and I'll just chat and I'll do a Q&A."

Other times, he's making bank by offering discounts on his own branded makeup products.

"It's a niche market but it's massive," he added. "We're the No. 1 or 2 beauty store."

The OnlyFans model—who made headlines in December 2024 for sleeping with 101 men in one day—told E! News that she earns a "good amount" off of creating NSFW content on the subscription-based platform.

As for a ballpark figure, she said, "Oh, we're in the millions."

Markell—known for his dance videos—told Salary Transparency Street in 2023 that he earns between $500,000 and $700,000 a year, mostly from brand deals and Snapchat's mid-roll program.

After appearing on Netflix's dating show Love Is Blind in 2022, the pair pivoted to social media stardom and said they each made $500,000 in less than two years as influencers.

Similarly, the Hills alums turned to social media to make money after the Los Angeles wildfires of 2025. But they weren't earning as much as people thought.

"Everyone thought that was $3.5 million in the week," Spencer told E! News at the time. "If it was true, we would be in Bel Air right now shopping for our new house."

Instead, he revealed he only made $3,500 that week from the 5,000 videos on his TikTok page.

The ASMR influencer—known as @itsblitzzz on YouTube —admitted in January 2024 that she scores about $56,400 a year on ad revenue from old videos, without creating new content.

The Minnesota YouTuber made over $193,000 on the adult platform OnlyFans from January 2020 to December 2022, she shared in a Medium article.

As explained on The Really Good Podcast in 2023, the content creator has scored $50,000 on a single sponsored video.

The chronic illness advocate told Salary Transparency Street in 2023 that she earns about $150,000 a year with less than 40,000 Instagram followers.

The comedian charges between $5,000 and $10,000 for a sponsored video, he told Salary Transparency Street.