Burger King proposed paying for the wedding of one recently engaged Illinois couple, Joel Burger and Ashley King, and they've accepted.
Springfield's
State Journal-Register interviewed Burger and King last week, where they revealed not only a fun photo of them posing next to a Burger King restaurant sign, but explained that they've known each other since kindergarten.
Toward the end of elementary school, both of them were invited as members of their student council to participate in a school assembly, and the presenter noticed the magical effect of their juxtaposed surnames.
"After the man was finished with his motivational speech, he asked the two fifth-grade representatives to stand up, as he wanted the students to applaud our efforts in helping set up his event. As soon as he said, 'Joel Burger and Ashley King,' he started to laugh out loud and pronounced we were 'Burger King,'" she explained.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Burger-King's engagement article soon went viral on social media, and was picked up by The New York Daily News, The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, the Daily Mail (UK) and a producer from Australia’s No. 1 Radio Show, The Kyle and Jackie O Show.
That's when communications directors at the Burger King headquarters caught wind of the story and reached out to the young couple.
"When we heard about the happy, Burger-King couple, we felt an overwhelming urge to celebrate their upcoming marriage," Eric Hirschhorn, Burger King spokesman,
told the Journal-Register this week. "On so many levels it felt like fate; they found each other and their story found us."
During a Skype call with the couple, Hirschhorn's team told the couple that they wanted to sponsor the couple's union by picking up the tab.
"We were just blown away," Joel said after receiving the news.
"We knew deep in our hearts that we wanted to honor the union of Mr. Burger and Ms. King," said Hirschhorn. "In an unforgettable way. Everyone at Burger King Brand agreed and, as Dave Bakke said, we knew we wanted to create a 'whopper of a wedding' that's uniquely their own. And now we hope we've swept them off their feet. All we ask in return is that they live happily ever after."
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