Everyone in the Portokalos family worries about Toula. Still unmarried at 30-years-old, she works at Dancing Zorba's, the Greek resturant owned by her parents, and smells like garlic bread. Her days are drab and dull, just like her hair, her clothes and her attitude. Still, Toula wishes for something more. Just when she's wishing she were prettier, she locks eyes on a tall, dark, handsome stranger, in the restaurant. The handsome stranger barely notices her.
Toula is ready for a change. Unfortunately, the rest of her family is not. A few computer classes, some contact lenses and a new attitude are the jump-start Toula's life needs. She takes a job at her aunt's travel agency, where this time, the handsome stranger locks eyes on the transformed Toula. He is Ian Miller, a high school teacher and definitely not Greek.
In no time, he's asked her out on a date and soon they are falling in love and planning to marry. Toula knows that if Ian can pass muster with her crazy relatives and get baptised in the Greek Orthadox Church... then their big, fat, Greek wedding, including one powder blue limousine, two ice sculptures and ten bridesmaids in turquoise dresses, will be a piece of cake, five layers high with a plastic staircase and a fountain of champagne.