Humans are genetically predisposed to love sauce. We’ve been adding it to food since before food was good. If you’re raw-dogging your sandwiches, I’m convinced you need a psych eval.
Less than a month into our relationship, I needed to know where Nick’s heart was, sauce-wise. “I love sauce. I’m the ‘Sauce Man,’” I told him. I needed to know his personal condiment ratio, or this relationship would not be long for this world. His response? “We’re The Saucemans!”
Thus ensued a delightful six years of too many bottles of hoisin, yearly sauce-themed holiday ornaments, and many refrains of “mustard, mayo and ketchup on the bun with an extra side of ketchup please.”
“Do you want to get married in a chicken tender dipping sauce campaign for Hellmann’s?” I asked my partner one Thursday morning in June. The mayo brand launched the contest to promote its new line of chicken tender dips and would cover the event—why not? I even properly proposed with my great-grandfather’s wedding band inside of a ramekin on a plate of fries.
As devoted sauce-heads, it isn’t at all absurd that we would want to be wed in a promotional campaign for Hellmann’s. That the officiant would be a giant anthropoid jar of mayo named Manny Mayo was actually too good to be true.
Our casting call video was competitive. It began with a jingle that Nick and I wrote:
“We’re in a saucy love affair /
’Cause we’re a tender lovin’ pair /
We’ve got a ramekin of love /
A dipping sauce from up above /
And neither one of us is going anywhere.”
I knew we were the correct choice for the gig—as kismet would have it, the prospective wedding date was Nick’s birthday—but I didn’t expect to be chosen. In a world where follower count almost always trumps authenticity, we offer a brand about as much exposure on social media as a nun on the beach.
It’s not that Hellmann’s is my favorite condiment—such absolutes are disrespectful to other sauces, which I love equally. But it’s the elder states-person in the room, and, according to my grandmother, the only mayonnaise. Now, it seemed the only way we could get married.
I have a hard time seeing the expense of a wedding as anything other than a frivolous, modern day dowry that distracts from what counts: gathering with those you love. It would have been a long time, if ever, before we could get comfortable giving a dime to Big Wedding.
June passed with no definitive answer from Hellmann’s, but Nick and I continued plotting our own plan B sauce-themed wedding. Luckily, we didn’t have to submit our secondary jingle to Sweet Baby Ray’s pleading that they sponsor our nuptials. We found out that we would indeed be Hellmann’s tender-loving couple.
And we only had two and a half weeks to plan.
The brand thought of everything. The florals would feature creams, blues and subtle pops of yellow. Tenders would be served on silver platters with white ramekins. The Viva Las Vegas Chapel, our venue, took care of the photographer and DJ. What little we had to do felt like performing a magic trick. The very next day, we found Nick’s suit—seersucker in cream, obviously—in just 15 minutes. Days later, our guest list was set: 60 people said, essentially, “why, yes, we will fly to Vegas during the hottest weeks of the year to see you get married by a mayo mascot. No follow-up questions.”
Through a friend, I hired Vegas-based, self-described “hairapyst” Rockwell De’Vil to do my hair and makeup, on a week’s notice. While I had a blast trying dresses on at a bridal boutique (to preserve at least one traditional experience with my mom), I couldn’t get past spending thousands on a white dress that, theoretically, anyone else could wear. So I called my dear friend Andrea Kaye Hansen, a bridal designer in Portland, Oregon, and asked if she could make a dress in two weeks. “I’ve had tighter turnarounds,” was her response.
The dressmaking process was a testament to the collective strength of women in my life. Andrea sketched a corseted A-line halter gown with a shower of hundreds of daisies, my rebellion against wearing all white. My aunt Cindy helped sew daisies to the dress, while Andrea’s mom helped with my single fitting. I wouldn’t try on the dress until 36 hours before the wedding, and with some last-minute help from my sister-in-law Liz, Andrea finished the dress 10 minutes before I put it on. She even added a blue velvet ribbon around the waist, the perfect touch for a Hellmann’s bride. The dress, a precious birdcage veil handmade by my best friend, Katie, and her mom, Diane, and the care my mom and sister took in dressing me was all a manifestation of the love that made me.
The splashy brand-sponsored event was shaping up to be most ideal for what a wedding should be about, including a major helping of dipping sauce.
Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel normally hosts Elvis-themed nuptials, so it was no surprise that our mayo-fueled wedding was an unhinged fever dream which spared no feral joy. A genuinely gorgeous four-foot-tall chicken tender tower was the focal point at the front of the chapel–three tiers of chicken tenders held up by Hellmann’s new dips and bursts of florals. Manny Mayo, our man of the cloth, er, sauce, sealed the deal with, “You may dip the bride,” and presented us with a plate of superlative tenders accompanied by no less than three Hellmann’s dips—garlic parmesan, buttermilk ranch and, my favorite, spicy ranch.
We walked down the aisle as a married couple to the “King of the Hill” theme song and sang “In Spite of Ourselves” to each other in lieu of a first dance. We made a toast to the tenders’ inspirational relationship with the dips and even had an impromptu speech from a guest—one famous chicken mogul’s “long lost cousin” who never was, “Kernel Saunders.”
Marie’s Gourmet Bakery created art from a Hellmann’s recipe, a three-tier yellow cake indeed made with mayonnaise, pristinely frosted in white buttercream topped with an adorable Manny Mayo figurine. Before you scoff, it was incredibly moist and tangy! We opted for Bavarian cream, chocolate mousse, and fresh strawberry for the layers, which Nick was particularly enthusiastic about. I only wish we could have had a bit more (shout out to our server T. for making sure we got a bite of the chocolate mousse).
For those wondering, it was indeed a legal marriage—my sister Larissa was our witness on the marriage license, which she signed in the Elvis-themed chapel. And while we forgot to do our vows at the ceremony, we read them before our friends and family in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel & Casino off historic Fremont Street. “Hellmann’s has mayonnaise and chicken tender dips. And I have you. Ain’t that something worth spreading?”
Reluctant bride that I was, I can’t recommend a silly, goofy, themed wedding enough. It was a spur of the moment adventure, and our family and friends showed up when we needed them. From start to finish, our nontraditional wedding showed me that the right relationship, much like the correct condiment, makes life’s chaotically sandwiched moments go down a little easier.