What's the worst meal you've been served at a wedding?

[Higgeldypiggeldy35]

I'm veggie so unfortunately have had my fair share of shitty wedding meals as the vegetarians often seem to get shafted but this one takes the biscuit. Fancy wedding, very expensive and exclusive venue, meat eaters had a feast and it looked amazing, I was served......a grilled mushroom, and it was cold. This place is probably £100 per head at the very least and the best they could rustle up for a vegetarian was a mushroom. So, make me feel better, what's the worst meal you've been served?
This is meant to be light hearted 🐱

Another strange wedding we went to, the invite stated the church (really beautiful in a mega expensive area) and the reception at the (equally exclusive) golf club virtually opposite the church.

Church service was at 9.15am
20 minutes later we were at the golf club.
Wedding party went in first to welcome their guests and we were given a glass of Champagne or freshly squeezed orange.

Waitresses serving non vegetarian but equally expensive canapés. I think no one got more than 3 x 1”square canapés

Wedding party helped themselves to the buffet but it was made clear that it was not for guests. As a guest there was nowhere to sit down

We stood around with our one glass in hand watching the wedding party eating at the long table.
There were very quick speeches and cake cutting and by 10.30 the waiting staff were clearing up and when the bride and groom left we were all discouraged from coming back into the venue.

Quickest wedding we have ever been to. Probably because they did away with more than 2square inches of food and 1 drink for any guest

At a wedding I was served a full roast dinner, I've been a vegetarian for donkey's years. When I asked the waitress for the vegetarian option she said 'there isn't one, do you want gravy'?

@Gothichouse40

Hi folks, Id be careful on this thread. Depending what you describe here, could perhaps identify someone's wedding and it may be hurtful for that person. Also we have had some of these threads ending up in the media. Just saying.

but what if it was hurtful for the person arranging the wedding?

Surely this sort of crap catering occurs because everyone is too polite to say anything? the company ensures that the bride groom and parents are happy and know that no one else will complain about it.

(course it could be that the bride/groom underpay and scrimp, who knows!)

Can’t get over the single mushroom!!

I've been to several weddings with a buffet where they had just undercatered and there was not enough food. Not many weddings I've been to have had much of an evening buffet either.
Separate (rubbish) food for children also sometimes happens.

A vegetarian wedding in the US. Just some plates of cheese and fruit. No bread or crackers. No alcohol except for the toast that was the sweetest and most disgusting fizzy wine ever. The marriage was over two weeks later. Nothing to do with the food though!

Nothing to do with the food though!

Are you sure? That menu sounds like grounds for divorce in my book

Buffets are a fucking disaster. I went to one where there was 15 tables. We were on one of the 'friends not family' tables so were last to be called up. Problem was the first few tables had finished by that time and had gone up for seconds and cleaned the entire thing out. Some of the more senior family members actually looked pleased with themselves when they saw our empty plates and were tucking into seconds. Some family children had several plates piled high they hadn't touched.

Buffets for veggies are dreadful too. Meat eaters see veggie dishes as 'additional sides' so load up on them in addition to what's provided even if it doesn't make sense (a mushroom risotto with some lamb and mint, a veggie lasagne with beef and Yorkshire's) leaving a few leaves of rocket for the veggies.

Worst for me was when a load of us as young low earners had travelled 3 hours by public transport from London and a very expensive taxi to the church. We had to bring our suitcases to the church and leave them outside, then get a taxi to to the B&B to drop our stuff, then get a taxi to the reception. By the time we had arrived at the reception the canapés were finished and the drinks had run out. The bar hadn't opened, it was about 100C and there was not an inch of shade. they refused to open the bar despite desperate calls and refused even water on the basis of their 'licence'. We were disappointed but assumed we'd be called for the meal shortly. Except it was 3 hours later. Nothing to drink. Hell.

A vegetarian wedding in the US. Just some plates of cheese and fruit.

Similar to one I went to. We had been invited to the evening do only and drove 150 miles to get there.

The only food provided for evening guests was a mountain of cheese, six grapes, and one box of crackers.

Veggie here too. A wedding in 2011, the veggie option was a stack made up of sliced tomatoes, slices of aubergine and slices of mozzarella. All soggy and gross.

Wow. No wonder so many people hate weddings! I've never been to one with bad food.

@MsFannySqueers

Some years ago we stayed at one of ‘The Hotel Inspector’ establishments, VERY expensive. However we thought a treat to ourselves. The hotel itself was mediocre but that’s another story. We were expected to order what we wanted for our dinner every morning?The food was OK but tiny portions. I asked for a cheese course one evening after dessert as I was still hungry. The waiter actually said he would look for some cheese that hadn’t yet been thrown away from other guest’s plates!

That is REALLY grim!

Meat eaters see veggie dishes as 'additional sides'

Most meat eaters are omnivores, so see food as food.

Agree that it is is bad form not take other’s needs into account though.

@Maassi

You all need to go to Indian weddings or use indian wedding caterers. It's the most incredible bountiful feast you have ever seen.

feast?

You mean feasts.

(unless you are in a hotel in London apparently)

At my friends wedding we had samosas and tea for breakfast in the Gurdwara.

After the wedding at the brides house there was more food and a group of 'aunties' who may or may not have been related to anyone but were on a mission to get as much food into people as they could.

Then an evening do with a buffet and a doggy bag plus 2 bottles of wine to take home.

And that was just the last day, I only attended the last 3 days of the wedding.

@Bathshebahardy

I've been to several weddings with a buffet where they had just undercatered and there was not enough food. Not many weddings I've been to have had much of an evening buffet either. Separate (rubbish) food for children also sometimes happens.

A lot of venues encourage you to only cater for a certain percentage of evening guests. I’ve seen them suggest anything from 50-75%. Their justification being that your day guests will have had a three course meal and evening guests might eat before they arrive. But they forget that there can be hours between dinner and the buffet, and everyone is drinking, so they get hungry. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a wedding with a decent evening buffet.

well if the woman who wanted to go to glastonbury instead of her mates wedding was ever wavering, she should probably read this thread

@Hoolihan

Never been served anything really unpleasant but did once have a slice of melon for starter, followed by plain grilled chicken breast, boiled potatoes and boiled broccoli. Scoop ov vanilla ice cream for pudding. An almost entirely flavourless meal.

I'm a coeliac and this sounds typical of the kind of thing I would have been served at weddings, especially 15 or 20 years ago. My heart used to sink at the inevitable mention of melon to start and fruit salad for desert. I didn't mind for my own sake but would be very annoyed on behalf of the hosts paying 60-80 pounds ahead for it. And I would always have phoned the venue ahead, so they can't claim ignorance. I made a point at my wedding of making sure the vegetarians were well catered for as well as myself, one of my guests told me it was the best vegetarian main course she'd ever had anywhere, let alone at a wedding.

couple catered themsevles = essentially a nut salad with couuscous (wanted to be vegan so they only had to cook 1 meal).

I'd never seen so many wedding guests at the mcdonalds over the road as it wasn't in ANY WAY filling.

Our daytime reception was held at DH's parents house and we'd organised very lavish buffet.
Because the weather was appalling the photographer took the group photos inside the church and then DH and myself went to his nearby studio to get some extra photos because we couldn't be outside. Everyone else went back to the house.
We were as quick as we could be ( maybe 45 mins or an hour). When we got to the house everyone had tucked into the buffet, noone had thought to plate us anything so we had an odd mixture of left overs.
By the time we went to the evening reception at a hotel we made sure we were 1st in the queue for that buffet! But at least our guests didn't go hungry.

My cousin's wedding in a stately home in England. We got one slice of meat, and two small roast potatoes with overcooked veg. My mother asked for another potato for my dad and the waitress came out with one on a plate under a cloth, knelt down and said "Don't let anyone else see this or they might ask too". DH and my other cousin's husband went to McDonalds as everyone was starving.
His sister's wasn't much better. There were 8 at a table and person 1 was finished eating when person 8 was served...it took about three minutes. The portions were just tiny. The buffet was only put out for twenty minutes in the evening...there were four weddings in the hotel and it looked like they were using the same food for all the evening buffets - yuk!

I helped cater for a cheap and cheerful wedding once - think 150 people in a village hall with a disco. We had the room divided into 6 sections. We had plates piled high with a variety of sandwiches and traditional working class party food like quiche, sausages, salads etc. We divided the food up so that fresh plates went out as each table finished self serving. We chucked extra crisps and sausage rolls out intermittently for an hour . Then out went the trifles and cupcakes . Best bloody wedding buffet ever! I drank a bottle of wine that night and was barely tipsy as we were all so well fed. If you’re gonna do posh and fancy then make sure the budget is there to feed everyone a whole dinner . Otherwise I suggest a visit to Costco and a chiller van

Buffets are so tricky. DH and I really didnt want our guests hungry so we served a full afternoon tea with more rustic normal sandwiches rather than fingers at 1.30pm when we went for photos, then a 4 course plated meal at 5pm with extra sides. Our venue tried to discourage us from ordering extra for the evening buffet, but even with all the things we added on to the buffet it was still hoovered up by about 50% of our guests like locusts. It disappeared so quickly that I didnt even see it put out despite being told it was being served. I'm always so embarrassed thinking about the evening buffet for this reason.

I have been quite fortunate to have not been served anything truly awful at weddings before, albeit some meals have been better than others. However we recently attended a pandemic wedding in probably the prettiest poshest venue id ever been to. Instead of the evening buffet they served it plated to each person for social distancing. It was one mini sausage roll and one chipolata sausage. They then came round with an abundance of condiments to choose from for those two things. So strange. The main meal was amazing though.

DH and I, as a rule, take ourselves off for a quick bite between the ceremony and reception. There's usually time to kill and we are better guests when we aren't hangry! We have had enough 11am/midday ceremonies with 6pm dinners and only tea and shortbread in between to have learned our lesson.

A not very nice goat and peanut stew, which had almost run out by the time was our turn to queue for it, so I only had a toddler sized portion. And no pudding or cake whatsoever.

And I was so hungry - the bride was two hours late, the service was 2 1/2 hours long, it was an hour to get to the hall they'd hired for food, and then an hour before they began serving even the bridal party. No canapés or snacks at all, and only coffee (not even tea) to drink.

To add insult to injury, they'd requested £30 per person as a contribution towards the costs, in addition to gifts!

Plus the groom's parents said my parents must be ashamed of me because I was giving up a career in accountancy to become a teacher.

As a diabetic veggie, I just accept that weddings/events are going to be crap.

Worst meal ever was when there was no veggie option at all, and I was brought a microwaved plain jacket potato with a few lettuce leaves and a tomato on the side. It was almost inedible and I got the distinct impression that the Bride wasn't impressed I'd ordered it even though I had offered to pay for it myself.