For Zoe Rosenthal and Yifan Lai’s wedding in February 2024 in Brooklyn, the couple was hoping they could bring together their Jewish and Chinese backgrounds, especially in the menu. “I think that was probably the most fun I’ve had,” said Carly Katz-Hackman of Pinch Food Design, a New York-based catering company that worked with the couple. Ms. Katz-Hackman is Jewish and grew up eating Chinese food on Christmas. “They wanted to do a traditional Chinese banquet dinner with hints of Judaism.”
Ideas like matzo balls cooked in Chinese chicken broth or challah displayed in the middle of the red-detailed tables were given. Ms. Rosenthal’s mother ended up making one giant challah that guests shared.
Caterers and planners say they have been receiving more requests lately from couples who want to incorporate food from their cultures into their wedding menus instead of simply choosing between chicken or fish.
“We are finding a lot of couples wanting to weave in some of their heritage,” said Emily Coyne, a wedding planner in Napa Valley, Calif. “Instead of doing it really overtly, they’re looking for it to be more of a subtle nod.” She said that her company had someone with Italian heritage marrying someone with Indian heritage. The result? Tamarind gelato. For another wedding, her team created lobster potpie (French) with wasabi powder (Japanese) on top.
The blending of cuisines to create a unique twist or surprise is a trend that aligns with how many young couples have approached their weddings in recent years — more personal, more authentic and more customized. Food is also an opportunity to find similarities between different backgrounds.
“There was a big, ‘Oh wow, there’s a lot of overlapping cultural elements here moment,’” Mr. Lai, 34, a private credit investor, said of when he realized how the gefilte fish Ms. Rosenthal, 31, ate as a child tasted similar to the fish balls that he grew up eating.
“Instead of us putting two different menu items on a plate together,” said Juan Hernández, a chef and caterer with Personal Touch Catering Experience in Hackensack, N.J., “we try to put it together so it’s more interesting.” Mr. Hernández sometimes spends hours researching how seemingly disparate ingredients can come together. Recent menu items he has made include branzino with corn croquettes (Mediterranean and Latin) or meatballs with sofrito topped with ricotta cheese (Italian and Dominican).
In Los Angeles, Isaiah Seay of L.A Roots Food Catering said that requests like “Lebanese-style gyoza” were not outside the norm. In that case, in which the groom was Lebanese and the bride was Japanese, Mr. Seay put together a cross between a sambousek, a Middle Eastern pastry, and a gyoza, a pan-fried Japanese dumpling, stuffed with lamb, pine nuts and roasted red peppers.
Tanpreet Saini, 31, and Anthony Pacheco, 34, live in Queens, N.Y., where they also grew up. Ms. Saini’s family is Punjabi Indian and Mr. Pacheco’s is Puerto Rican. At their wedding in August, they served garlic mofongo, bistec con pimientos, pastelillos, samosas, paneer pakora and chicken tikka.
“We wanted to make it as personal as possible as opposed to elevated and fancy,” Mr. Pacheco, a professional break dancer, said of watching guests eat salty tostones (fried plantains) with creamy butter chicken. “This is the food that we grew up with.”
While some couples look for a caterer who can accommodate their menu needs, others may just pick up from their favorite restaurants.
Richard Chang, 41, who is of Chinese descent, and Victoria Abbyaeva, 30, who is from the Russian republic of Kalmykia, recently married in New York City in October. Their menu came together by ordering Peking duck and ginger scallion lobster from Wu’s Wonton King, a restaurant in Chinatown, and plov and shashlik from Tashkent Supermarket, an Uzbek and Russian market with locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
“When you’re marrying somebody who is from a different culture,” said Geoffrey Greif, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, “you want to make sure that your family is represented. ”
“Food is an incredibly important way to maintain identity,” added Dr. Greif, who is the author of a forthcoming book about marriage across cultures.
For Mr. Pacheco and Ms. Saini, the wedding menu was a way to blend not just their cultures, but their parents’ palettes. The wedding “was my mom’s first time eating certain Puerto Rican dishes, like mofongo,” said Ms. Saini, who also watched her in-laws work through some confusion over how to eat roti.
“And now, funny enough,” Ms. Saini added, “she’s like, Wow, can we go out to that Hispanic restaurant?”
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