When it came to planning their 200-person wedding, Madeleine Byrne and Zachary Visotsky chose to host it at the New Orleans Creole restaurant Brennan’s rather than some “big blank space,” or “boring ballroom,” as they put it.
Ms. Byrne, 31, a publicist based in New York, and Mr. Visotsky, also 31, a business strategy consultant, held their November 2023 ceremony in the restaurant’s courtyard, which had space for just 20 seats. Their families sat while everyone else stood around them, cocktails in hand.
During the reception, guests were treated to an oyster bar and food stations serving regional specialties like crawfish étouffée, barbecue shrimp and grits, and bananas foster, a menu Ms. Byrne described as “unapologetically indulgent” and a “love letter” to New Orleans, where both have deep family ties. The couple also embraced Brennan’s colorful personality, covering the stairs in rainbow-shaded balloons. And by happy accident, they wore its signature hues, with Ms. Byrne clad in pink and Mr. Visotsky in green.
“Brennan’s felt designed for celebration, not just dinner,” Ms. Byrne said. “Even with 200 guests, it still felt intimate.”
Many couples are choosing restaurants over more traditional wedding venues, like banquet halls or event spaces, where there are often more rigid schedules involving cake-cutting, first dances and speeches.
“Traditional venues can be beautiful, but they often start as blank canvases,” said Bronson van Wyck, a founder of the New York-based event design and production firm Van Wyck & Van Wyck. “A restaurant comes with everything you need already in place: an expertly designed space, built-in ambience, a seasoned team, and, most importantly, a kitchen that knows exactly what it does best.”
In addition, he said, a restaurant “strips away the pressure, ditches the script and lets the couple actually enjoy their own party.”
In a pre-dinner speech at their wedding last New Year’s Eve at the Middle Eastern restaurant Bavel in Los Angeles, Julia Levy Scherer and Josh Scherer encouraged guests to “let loose, be messy, and eat with their hands.”
Ms. Scherer, 31, an executive for a collection of marketing agencies in Los Angeles, and Mr. Scherer, 32, the executive director of culinary content at an entertainment company, provided custom wet naps, designed by the bride.
“We’re both over 30, which means we’ve been to dozens of friends’ weddings at this point,” Ms. Scherer said. “There was one wedding in particular where we watched at least 20 plates of dry chicken breast and unseasoned baby vegetables go completely untouched by the guests. It seemed bizarre to pay thousands of dollars for food that no one seems to actually enjoy. That’s when we said, screw it, we’re renting out our favorite restaurant in the city.”
Their family-style menu included what Ms. Scherer described as “food you have to throw yourself into,” like hummus with duck ‘nduja, and lamb neck shawarma. “It was awesome to see friends who aren’t traditionally big food people get their minds absolutely blown by a plate of roasted mushrooms,” she said. “Something I heard a lot was ‘Bavel has been on my list forever.’ It felt like we were inviting people into our world.”
Bridget Dawson, the founder of Merilina Events in Kingston, N.Y., said restaurant weddings are “all about creating an environment that feels authentic to the couple and their relationship and reflects how they would naturally celebrate in every other part of their lives.”
Only perhaps a bit more extraordinary. “Getting dressed up and entering a familiar space for a special occasion and seeing the space dressed up, too, feels special,” said Serena Merriman, the founder of Merriman Events in New York.
Instead of a traditional cake cutting, the Scherers fed each other harissa prawns. They had a huppah built to fit the restaurant’s patio, and moved inside for dinner and dancing. (They even danced the hora to a techno remix of “Hava Nagila.”) Pieces of kale and sprigs of rosemary were used in the flower arrangements; fruits and vegetables doubled as table décor; and Ms. Scherer’s bouquet featured an artichoke.
“People are growing tired of the traditional wedding timeline, which can feel rigid, scripted, and like it’s working against the fun instead of creating it,” said Mr. van Wyck, who has seen an increase in restaurant celebrations. “Restaurant weddings naturally strip away those formalities. No room for a dance floor? That means no awkward first dance, just dancing around the tables or, better yet, on them.”
Julia Canon, 30, who works in advertising in New York, described her September wedding celebration with Frank Canon, a business development lead, as “one big magical dinner party.” The couple, both 30, hosted their 30-person nuptials at Il Riccio, an endlessly Instagrammable cliffside restaurant in Capri, Italy.
“It was incredibly important to both of us that we serve amazing food at our wedding,” Ms. Canon said of the Michelin-starred restaurant. “We were asking our guests to fly all the way to Italy — it had to be great.”
Apart from the Mediterranean fare, Ms. Canon, who has a self-described sweet tooth, chose Il Riccio for its famed dessert room, which the restaurant opened for the event. “It was a huge hit with our guests and one of everyone’s favorite memories of the night,” she said, describing treats from gelato and lemon tarts to cannolis and crème puffs. “We did not want our wedding to feel like a ‘traditional’ wedding,” she said, “and I think having it at a restaurant helped us achieve that feeling.”
Kari Costas, 36, a director of resort experiences, and David Nathans, 33, a chef in Hudson, N.Y., decided on a restaurant wedding in January 2024. They hosted 40 guests at Al di Là, an Italian trattoria in Brooklyn, where the couple had spent one of their first dates and held many birthday celebrations and weeknight dinners later. “When I tried their chocolate pear tart for dessert, I said I wanted it to be our wedding cake, regardless of where we got married,” Ms. Costas said. It was.
The restaurant’s chef and owner, Anna Klinger, said there had been a 30 percent increase in wedding inquiries last year over the previous year. Other restaurants have also reported a rise. Sepia, in Chicago, has seen inquiries nearly double over the last 12 months, with most coming in the current first quarter, according to Josh Zeigler, the private events sales manager. And at Brennans, wedding-related events are up 30 percent since 2023, the restaurant’s senior sales manager, Ashley Hill, said.
At their wedding, Ms. Costas and Mr. Nathans covered each long rectangular dining table with butcher paper and placed crayons in julep cups for guests to doodle with. Antique dishes collected by Ms. Klinger were paired with the “charming yet unfussy” pressed tin ceilings, mismatched chandeliers, heavy velvet drapes, worn tile floors and cheerful yellow wallpaper. In advance of the ceremony, Ms. Costas drank a glass of champagne with Ms. Klinger, and during dinner Mr. Nathans “played sommelier,” making sure not a glass went empty.
They ended the night grabbing pizza at the neighborhood dive, Canal Bar. “I still have sauce stains on my Manolos,” Ms. Costas said.
