We are starting our Married at the Movies series with one of my favorite wedding movies, “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”

For the pairing, I collaborated with my fiancé on four topping ideas. He came up with the Italian one and using chili lime seasoning for another, while I went with the furikake option and our sweet selection, chocolate.

The popcorn and toppings we used are vegan and gluten-free.

Ingredients
vegan popcorn
toppings of choice (vegan & gluten-free)

Instructions
Prepare your popcorn. We made a bag of microwaved sea salt popcorn that makes 3 “servings.”

Pour your popcorn into bowls that leave room for tossing or drizzling, depending on your toppings. Since we made four different topping options, we used four bowls.

If you’re using a seasoning for your topping, you can just pour it on there like we did with some of ours, or you can melt them with a pat of vegan butter in the microwave for 30 seconds. You can also use olive oil.

Our first topping was a furikake seasoning blend we have that includes black sesame seeds, white sesame seeds and nori flakes. We just poured a tablespoon or two of that into one bowl and tossed it.

We did the melted butter method with a teaspoon of chili lime seasoning. We stirred the melted chili lime butter into our popcorn, trying to cover every popped kernel.

For our Italian popcorn, we sprinkled in vegan parmesan and an Italian seasoning blend that includes. Then we drizzled some melted butter over the top and mixed it all together.

Finally, for a sweet option, we drizzled a tablespoon or two of chocolate syrup over the top. We used a wider, flatter bowl for this one, so that worked out pretty well. Other ice cream toppings like vegan caramel or strawberry syrup might also work well for a sweet option.

The Easy Route
They make all manner of pre-made flavored popcorn and kettle corn these days (with a lot of vegan and gluten-free options), so it shouldn’t be too hard to find one at your favorite store.

During the pandemic, many movie theaters started making their popcorn available to go, and some of them are making that a permanent option. However, I can’t guarantee that your local theater will come through with a variety of flavors that are vegan and gluten-free.

The Pairing
I watched “My Best Friend’s Wedding” dozens of times as a kid, and part of me always thought I’d end up like the protagonist, watching all of my contemporaries get married and never having my shot.

But, I’m very happy to say I’m getting married in April to my boyfriend of eight years.

Coincidentally, the two lead characters in the movie reminisce about their trip to Florence in a karaoke bar, and the city is one of our stops on our honeymoon in Italy.

Back to the movie: Julia Roberts stars as Julianne, a career-driven food writer who finds her world turned upside down when her best friend, Michael (Dermot Mulroney), reveals that he’s getting married in four days.

She flies to Chicago for the festivities and is quickly introduced to the bride-to-be, Kimberly (Cameron Diaz).

Julianne quickly realizes she’s in love with Michael, and she goes about doing everything she can to remove Kimberly from the equation. This includes recruiting her gay best friend, George (Rupert Everett), to pose her fiancé in an attempt to make Michael jealous.

Diaz is scene-stealing as Kimberly in one of her early roles, and this performance from Roberts is pretty dang iconic.

There are also some fun ensemble moments in the film, most notably when George leads the whole bridal party in a rendition of Dionne Warwick’s “I Say a Little Prayer.”

If you decide to make some customized popcorn and/or watch “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” let us know! Tag us in your Instagram posts & stories, tweets or TikTok videos: @veg_out_recipes

As I said at the start, this is the first installment of our five-part Married at the Movies series. The others:
Part 2: “The Wedding Singer” + vegan chicken bacon ranch pizza
Part 3 coming March 30
Part 4 coming April 6
Part 5 coming April 13