Everyone knows the cost of weddings can be exorbitant. However, one woman said she pulled off her perfect day at a great price by hiring an unlikely caterer: Chili’s.
In a viral video, user @brideisapersonality explained how having Chili’s as her caterer saved her a ton of money.
“We served Chili’s at our wedding and this is how much we spent,” the TikToker began the video.
In the background, she holds a receipt that features what the total was and everything she served to guests, including chips and salsa, salad, egg rolls, cajun chicken pasta, chicken tenders, sliders.
“Our total cost for our wedding food was $1,950 for 99 guests,” she said. “This also includes five specialty meals that we did for people who were gluten-free, dairy-free, and can’t eat meat, and people who needed special items like no dairy, only seafood, etc.”
@brideisapersonality So happy we did this!! #greenscreen #bride #bridetok #weddingtok #bridal #wedding #2023bride #2024bride #2023wedding #weddingwardrobe #weddingideas #weddingplanning #bridalcontentcreator #brideisapersonality #chilis #weddingfood #weddingcaterer #budgetbride ♬ original sound – MADISON MULKEY
While the TikToker was thoroughly impressed with the price point for all of the food, she said she did run into unexpected hurdles. “We had to pick it up pretty early because we didn’t want to pay the delivery fees,” she continued.
The TikToker said her wedding day also fell on St. Patrick’s Day, and the restaurant prepared the food ahead of time to ensure the entire order could be fulfilled. This meant the food had to be rewarmed and set up by the bride, her family, and the servers she hired to wait on guests and help clean up.
“We had to have our hired servers who were really supposed to be like cleaning, serving, preparing, really do a lot of the cooking. My coordinator had to show them what to do and take on a role that she wasn’t really supposed to do,” the TikToker said. “That was just a lot more work than we had anticipated.”
Nonetheless, the TikToker said she was still happy with her choice.
“The food was amazing,” she concluded. “It was the perfect meal for our wedding.”
Her video was viewed over 1.3 million times. Some viewers criticized the bride for not simply having the food delivered and expecting her servers to do additional, unexpected labor. “I’m all for this, but as someone who works in the industry, this sounds like a nightmare for your staff and coordinator,” user @mars wrote. “You should have paid delivery.”
However, others applauded the bride’s decision to go with a cost-effective option that still makes guests happy.
“Normalize this,” a commenter wrote. “Weddings are so out of control! Such a great idea!”
“I would be so hype to find out the wedding food was Chili’s,” one user commented.
Chili’s also eventually chimed in with a simple comment on the bride’s video: “Iconic.”
The Daily Dot reached out to @brideisapersonality and Chili’s for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
