Strapped for cash months before marrying his fiancée, Dagobert Renouf did something surprising: He turned his wedding suit into a billboard. The result? He collected about €10,000, threw a wedding where he wore a designer suit covered in startup logos, and — perhaps most shockingly of all — turned that stunt into a new job in tech sales.
Renouf, 36, who is based in Lille, France, describes how he spent seven years bootstrapping his startup and had run out of money when his fiancée’s visa forced him to get married before he was ready. When a friend made a passing joke about putting company logos all over his suit and selling ad space to business owners, Renouf realized the idea was no joke at all. He asked on X (formerly Twitter), “I need a way to pay for my wedding… ideas?” Within days, he was selling sponsorship packages for his suit — an average of €300 per logo — and eventually accumulated logos from 26 companies through his network of entrepreneurs.
His fiancée, Anna Plynina, at first turned up her nose — it seemed gimmicky — but came around when the couple reframed the campaign as a contribution to their entrepreneurial community. The green jacket, embroidered by a friend and stylist, cost about €5,000 to make, but it kept costs down and the guest list short. The reasoning: rather than a fancy guest list or expensive space, they made design, community, and story the stars of the show.
It wasn’t just the wedding that got a boost. One of the logos adorning the suit belongs to Comp AI, a tech startup whose cofounder was watching Renouf’s story unfold on social media. Shortly after the wedding campaign's success, the startup asked Renouf to join its sales team. “I never would have gotten this job without the suit,” he said later. What started out as a creative way to fund turned into a genuine career pivot.
The campaign was a hit among entrepreneurs and businesspeople. People applauded their resourcefulness and hustle; some wondered whether transforming a wedding into a platform for sponsors crossed personal and professional lines. Renouf saw it differently: To him, entrepreneurship is risk, creativity, and exposure; it’s also community—and this was just living that. Every logo on his suit, he said, represented a person he knew, a founder that inspired him, and a story of collaboration instead of another faceless corporate ad.
For other entrepreneurs, there are two lessons to be drawn. First: Sponsorship isn’t just for sports arenas and billboards; personal milestones can be platforms, too — if the story resonates. Second: building visibility matters. Renouf wasn’t just seeking logos; he was trying the stunt, sharing it online, inviting his network in, and making it authentic rather than desperate. His social media cred was already established long before the suit.
Of course, this isn’t a strategy for everyone. But critics argue that treating one’s wedding like marketing can make the experience of getting married feel transactional, and they say the aesthetic risk is real. Renouf confessed he was anxious his wife’s family would hate the look. He also knew the suit should look high-end, rather than cheap sponsorship scrap — so he spent thousands more to ensure the end result was tastefully branded rather than gaudy.
But the larger lesson is about mindset. Rather than telling herself “I can’t afford this,” Renouf posed herself the question: “How do I come up with so much value that I then can afford this?” That mindset shifted his outcome. It may seem like luck that a job offer followed the stunt, but he was also able to build the runway by being odd, visible, and resourceful.
He crowdfunded his wedding money by selling advertising space on the suit, and eventually went to work for one of his sponsors. For anyone stranded in the gap between dream and budget, his story is evidence that creativity and community can be the key to unlocking doors you never knew existed. Whether you found it a neat idea or weird, it clearly worked.
