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.
