A broke Frenchman was able to cover the cost of his wedding by selling advertisements on his tuxedo jacket to 26 startups and becoming a human billboard.
French salesman Dagobert Renouf had long been dreaming of marrying his then-fiancée, Anna Plynina, but he was too poor to afford a proper wedding. To put it plainly, he was completely broke and on the verge of homelessness. But that was no reason to deprive his beloved of the wedding she had been dreaming of. Back in July, he posted on X, announcing that he had decided to try and cover the expenses of his nuptials by becoming a human billboard. Any company willing to promote their products or services was willing to buy a slot on his suit jacket. His post went viral, and he ended up with 26 brand names on his jacket and a total of $10,000 in advertising fees.
Photo: Dagobert Renouf/X
“This summer I was completely broke, close to homelessness, but still wanted to marry my wife,” Renouf told PEOPLE Magazine. “I asked for help from my community of entrepreneurs on social media, and someone joked he would give me €500 (approximately $576 USD) if he put his logo on my suit. Then it caught on and other people said they would do it as well.”
“My wife didn’t like the idea at first, but then we started focusing on really using the opportunity to bring all of my entrepreneurship community I had built over the years alongside us on this special day,” Dagobert added. “Then we started taking it seriously.”
Photo: Dagobert Renouf/X
On October 25, Dagobert married Anna in front of only 16 people, wearing a suit jacket featuring the names of the 26 startups that had made his dream possible. The guests loved the idea, but he was constantly stressed about the visibility of all the logos. Making the jacket on short notice wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, but he made it a reality.
“Making a beautiful jacket with logos is more complicated than I thought, especially on such short notice,” Renouf said. “The suit ended up costing $5,200, out of the $10,000 I sold worth of sponsorship slots. Then, because of my current entrepreneurship status in France, I couldn’t even expense it, so I still had to pay $2,500 taxes on the $10,000. I basically got a free suit and $2,000 out of it.”
But the unique advertising project didn’t just pay for the Frenchman’s wedding, it also helped him land a dream job. An entrepreneur from his community was impressed by how dedicated he was and how he managed to sell so many slots so fast. He offered him a job at Comp AI, a fast-growing startup in New York, and it turned out to be the best job he could have hoped for.
