Latest in Asian Trends. McDonalds Weddings. I bet you never considered that?!
What started in Japan in a bout of nostalgia is now spreading throughout Asia. Embracing memories of childhood birthdays with Ronald, the Grimace and friends Asians are now hosting their weddings at McDonalds. The “value” fast food chain has embraced the trend and in in January, McDonald’s added wedding packages to its Hong Kong menu. This is the only city in the world where the American restaurant chain offers the service, prompted by frequent inquiries about fast-food weddings from customers in recent years.
Now, three McDonald’s locations are equipped to stage marital festivities in the style of any 6-year-old’s model birthday. That the corporation should move to fill — or perhaps create — this niche is not so unusual. Despite being surpassed by Subway as the world’s largest fast-food chain, McDonald’s still serves 400,000 Hong Kongers every day. Countless couples will have met, or at least dated, there. Business executives take clients there for lunch; high school students gather there over homework.
The traditional Chinese wedding banquet is slow-cooked, not flash-fried. A string of familial rituals are done in number by a dozen or so courses — shark-fin soup, sea cucumber, animals in their entirety meant to bring luck and completeness — and a series of costume changes. A ceremonial dinner of 20 crimson-clothed tables begins at about $38,000, and the betrothed are unlikely to know personally a majority of the invitees.
By contrast, the McWedding is casual, stress-free and inexpensive: the basic Warm and Sweet Wedding Package for 50 guests goes for under $1,300. For another $165, the bride can rent a gown of pearly white balloons.
Personally I am all in favor of cheap and cheerful, just as long as the Hamburgler doesn’t make off the ring!
