The Walmart Wedding

If you’re already sick of wedding season and can’t stand to do the Chicken Dance at one more reception, you can count your lucky stars that at least you didn’t have to sit on a pew made of wooden planks and orange Home Depot buckets or had to cram into the T.J. Maxx shoe section to see the bride walk down the size 8 aisle. With many couples feeling the need to make their nuptials unique and memorable, there are some weird things going on in wedding planning. Retail weddings have been gaining in popularity, so don’t be surprised if a wedding invitation beckons you to a Taco Bell.

The latest of these retail weddings was reported by Friends of the Program in July, taking place in what looks to be the stock room at Walmart, surrounded by products from the Garden Center. An Arkansas couple was married in front of a canvas gazebo, encircled with flowers from the store’s garden section. Guests sat on plush patio chairs. Photos show the happy couple cutting and eating their wedding cake in front of a Sam’s Choice vending machine – possibly in the staff break room? There were few details provided about the couple or the wedding, but based on past weddings that have happened at Walmart stores (and there have been many, according to People of Walmart and Wedinator) and other retailers, the couple may have met while working there.

That was the case with one wedding held at Home Depot in June 2010 in California. It seems to have happened during store hours, because USA Today reports that the couple exchanged vows in front of friends, family, and customers. Customers? Two employees at a Cold Stone Creamery in Ohio married at their workplace, though the store owners reopened after hours to hold the wedding (so it is assumed that it was a private, customer-free ceremony).

There are plenty of couples planning retail weddings just out of love for the store. Weddings were once about celebrating the love between the couple, but now the event can be about their love for home improvement or saving money on fashion.  One couple held a Midsummer Night’s Dream-themed wedding in a Home Depot in Santa Fe, New Mexico, because they spent so much time at the store. One would think that if you had to spend a lot of time there, it’s the last place you would want to spend even more time. Plus, I know it’s been a while since I read or saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but I don’t remember anything about a hardware store or power tools amongst the fairies.  The first wedding to take place at a T.J. Maxx store happened in 2010 in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. The bride is a self-proclaimed “Maxxinista” and claims that the one constant in her life has been T.J. Maxx. Maybe the message she is trying to send here is that she wants her marriage to be as solid as her relationship with the retailer.

If you are looking to save money on a wedding venue as well as providing a vast, reasonably priced menu at the reception, a Taco Bell spokesman says that their restaurants hosts about one wedding per year and they doesn’t charge for the ceremony. Fast food weddings aren’t uncommon in certain parts of the world. In fact, McDonald’s restaurants in Hong Kong offer wedding packages and routinely throw engagement parties. The cake is made out of boxed apple pies, and there are more balloons than a six-year-old’s birthday party in the McDonald’s Play Places of your youth.

Watch your mailbox. Your next wedding invitation could be to a wedding in a store. While the seating sounds as uncomfortable as the stares from shoppers, at least you may be able to finish a few errands while you’re there.