Here Comes The Bride And She's Eating Fast Food
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Who wants dry chicken at a wedding when you could have a Big Mac? If recent trends are to be believed, the stereotypical bland wedding meal is slowly being replaced by Crunchwrap Supremes and Dairy Queen Blizzards. What’s the natural progression from a cannabis wedding? A fast food wedding, of course.
Whether you’re having your wedding catered by McDonald’s, ordering slices of pizza to the dance floor, or saying “I do” at Taco Bell’s wedding chapel in Las Vegas, the fast food wedding is on the rise.
Fast food restaurants have even started offering wedding packages. Dairy Queen will set up a Blizzard bar where guests can enjoy made-to-order frozen treats. Taco Bell has an entire website dedicated to its wedding packages and chapel. And couples outside the U.S. are embracing it too: McDonald’s in Indonesia sells a wedding catering package with 100 chicken burgers and 100 four-packs of McNuggets.
Jordan Gonzales didn’t get married at the Taco Bell chapel, but she did have a civil ceremony at a Taco Bell Cantina in Pacifica, California, just steps from the beach. Guests enjoyed their favorite Taco Bell items, along with beer and boozy Baja Blasts.
“Throughout our relationship, wine and Taco Bell game nights at home have been some of our favorite weekend dates, so Taco Bell felt like a fun and different way to tie the knot before our destination wedding,” said Gonzales.
Fast food has become a popular late-night treat at weddings, after dinner when the booze is flowing. But now it seems like more couples are starting to ditch traditional catering for dinner itself and opt for food that really resonates. And for many people, fast food, snacks, and pizza mean more to them and their relationship than a catering company’s menu.
“People want their relationships reflected in their events. It’s more meaningful that way. If you personalize the details, then you feel more connected to the event itself,” said Amy Egan, founder and CEO of Modern Rebel, a wedding planning company in New York City.
Her company creates weddings that “break the rules.” They plan what they call “love parties” that feature anything from cannabis bars and bounce houses to Pop Rocks and cotton candy for dessert.
"I think it's the personal element. I think it's the comfort food element,” she said. “This is what makes us feel at home and this feels most like us.”
Egan hasn’t planned a love party with fast food as the main meal, but she has planned celebrations that have incorporated fast food like French fries and pizza as pop-up stations or party favors.
For the Gonzaleses, the marriage ceremony only lasted about five minutes, which left more time to celebrate. “We had no real timeline, expectations, or stress going into the day, which allowed us to really enjoy our guests, the venue, and the food. I wouldn’t have changed a single thing!”
Aside from the personalized aspect of a fast food wedding, it also costs less than traditional wedding food. Weddings are expensive, and across TikTok, people have posted about how much money they’re saving by opting for unconventional catering. According to a video by Jade Benward, she’s saving thousands of dollars by having Fazoli’s cater her wedding.
“Weddings are ridiculously expensive post-pandemic, so I think untraditional weddings give couples an opportunity to create a wedding day that's special to them without the price tag,” said Gonzales.
While Egan doesn’t think couples are opting for fast food solely for the cost savings, she does think it’s an added bonus. And with weddings becoming more of a celebration than simply a rite of passage, she doesn’t think personalized weddings are just a passing fad.
“It’s something that has been stewing and brewing for years, and the next generation that’s coming up right now is more excited than ever to kind of just let go of the frills and fuss and make sure that these events feel like them,” Egan said.
And if everyone a your wedding really wants fast food at the end of the night, why not just serve it for dinner?
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