It all started, as so many things do, with the middle school set. Fast food at formal events “got very hot, hot, hot a few years back,” says event planner Marcy Blum. “It came out of the bar/bat mitzvah scene.” Faced with the onerous task of menu selection, kids decided that steak tartare didn’t sound nearly as appealing as french fries and hot dogs.
Eventually the millennials caught on. At weddings from Santa Barbara to Savannah (and even,if you were really fancy, abroad), it became obligatory to bring out silver trays of Big Macs or In-N-Out Double-Doubles for the afterparty. Lately, though, couples have been moving past the novelty humor of the $777 Taco Bell wedding package and leveling up their late night snack options. Not that they’re trading burgers for another round of filet mignon: Fast food staples remain the choice menu, except now those fries are coming from La Goulue, not Mickey D’s.
“It may be comfort food, but all the ingredients are fresh and high-quality,” says Alice Garretti, co-founder of Acquolina, the preferred caterer of fashion and art world parties. And at the same time that quality expectations are rising—even for something just to satisfy the midnight munchies—the desire for less fuss has been filtering into the main reception dinner menu. “A number of years ago, smokes and foams and essences were in vogue,” Garretti says. “Now people are steering away from anything that feels too fancy. They want the classics.”
For a wedding at the New York Public Library, Acquolina, which is known for crafting extravagant edibles (like baked Alaskas that resemble the Sugar Plum Fairy’s candy palace), served mini-meatballs. At other events Acquolina has done dim sum carts or little hot dogs topped with caviar.
The caviar, by the way, is key.“You’re not just serving chicken nuggets, you’re doing Coqodaq,” Blum says, referring to the Korean fried chicken restaurant known for serving wings with Ossetra and Beluga. Some couples go bigger still, bringing beloved institutions like Katz’s Delicatessen to their weddings. “We built a food truck for them,” Blum recalls of one celebration, “but Katz’s brought the chefs and the rye bread.”
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The Mark Hotel in New York has a Jean-Georges “Haute Dog” cart that can be rolled out for weddings and events. (You don’t have to be getting married at the Mark to book it.) The wieners are made with organic chicken and grass-fed beef and topped with condiments like the chef’s signature kimchi relish. (For those who don’t have a party invite but are still hoping for a $6 bite, the original Haute Dog cart is generally parked outside the hotel’s 77th Street entrance.)
But chicken nuggets seem to be most popular at the moment. At the wedding of Carlin Smith and Charlie Corcoran, which opens this section, the couple requested that La Goulue, the Manhattan bistro that recently opened an outpost in Southampton, make the snacks for their afterparty. To be clear, nuggets are not on the restaurant’s regular menu. “Fun food adds to the party ambience,” says Blum.
She also points to another potential reason: GLP-1s. “The reality is, people aren’t actually ordering less,they just don’t eat nearly as much.” In that way fast food, particularly at an otherwise luxurious event—and topped with caviar—is in itself a form of conspicuous consumption.
Top: For $5,000 and up, the Mark’s Haute Dog cart will serve franks at your reception.
This story appears in the April 2026 issue ofTown & Country.SUBSCRIBE NOW
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