What’s your strangest ‘wedding food’ related story

[CosyMosy]

Sorry, rubbish title! I was chatting today with a colleague about a wedding I went to last year. The wedding was at the church at 12pm and we were invited to a country club for the reception. We turned up at 1 to find the buffet laid out but not open. We were told it wasn’t opening till 4!! Everyone was starving and the only thing behind the bar was out of date crisps (that the bar was selling for 10pm cheaper because of 😅). When the buffet eventually opened at 4, the bride announced over the mic that we needed to make sure we only took 1 small plate each because it had to last for the night guests as well 😵‍💫. The takeaway down the road made a roaring trade that night

My colleague told me she once went to the wedding of her DH’s colleague, when they sat down for the wedding breakfast half the table were given menus with prices on. When they queried this, it turns out the bride and groom had made the decision to only pay for HALF of the guests meals and the other half were to order and pay for their own meal at the bar!

Something about weddings brings out the worst in people!

This sounds like an 'alternate drop' rather than men and women. It's the norm in Aus and NZ. Servers will randomly drop a plate of chicken or red meat with the first person on the table and then alternate chicken and red meat round the table. Then everyone barters for their choice and swaps plates before the vegetables are served.

It's a ridiculous way of operating but it's totally standard here and it happens at every bloody wedding. If the whole table want the lamb then you are stuffed and have to go off round the room looking for someone who is willing to swap.

Wedding 1
3 hour drive... lovely wedding... reception in same building - waiters wandering around with nibbles - and then the B&G left and it ended 🫣. So 3 hour drive home via McD !

Wedding 2
Arrived for wedding to discover B&G had an intimate ceremony & meal, and we were there to drop a present & mill around wondering wtf was happening. We left as soon as kids asked for food!

Wedding 3
Recent one with secret menu. The food was cold & portions tiny...with the most random starter i've ever been served!

After years of pathetic wedding meals my friend and her husband really pulled it out if tge bag.
Mini fish and chips,mini burgers and mini kebabs after the outdoor ceremony with beer or pimms then
3 course hot meal 2 hours later
Then hog roast at 8pm

Now that sounds like a decent wedding!

Went to the wedding of my then husband’s boss. Very rich people. Family firm where father had made all the money, son living off the proceeds and just about keeping the firm ticking over with minimum effort made.
I am vegetarian and husband was pescetarian. Boss was well aware of this because he would frequently take the piss out my husband. Boss hated vegetarianism, would moan about how stupid it was and seemed to take it as a sign of moral decay.
Anyway, wedding breakfast was in a huge marquee in the garden of the family home.
First course - prawn cocktail. We say to the waitress I can’t eat this. She is embarrassed to tell me no alternative has been made by groom. ( He had arranged whole wedding, bride barely allowed a say on anything)
I think ok, will just have main course and pudding.
Main course - cottage pie. Poor waitress apologises again as no alternative has been arranged. Offers us a plate of mashed potato she can scrape of the top which we decline as it has been resting on beef.
Pudding - eaton mess. We could eat this but by then were absolutely starving.
Went home fairly soon afterwards. I knew this was not a mistake, it was sheer refusal to accommodate something he didn’t agree with.

Feel like I should add my wedding to this! Husband and I both have big families so wanted everyone there but on a budget so food was quite simple. We had a hog roast, salads and lasagne, with veggie lasagne saved for my aunt and cousin who were the only vegetarians there.

The veggie lasagne didn't arrive. We had no idea as no-one told us, so we only heard after the day that they'd just had salads and wedding cakes until the evening buffet (around 8pm).

Mortified. Hugely apologised afterwards. Family didn't want to stress us out so didn't tell us, the caterers didn't mention it until we complained after the day, and I felt so awful for them thinking that we just didn't cater for them! Still cringe when I think of it 😬

I went to one where 2 slate platters were brought to the table for the starter. Each had one and a half slices of ham cut into 6 pieces, 6 grapes, 6 cubes of cheese, a pork pie cut into 6 slices and a selection of relishes in eggcups. This was to feed 12 people.

Main was a platter of roast chicken pieces and roast pork slices. Again there was 1 of each item for each person.

The first people served themselves a couple of slices of pork and a chicken breast each. The person before me just got a chicken leg and I ended up with a chicken wing. The sides were not enough to bulk out my solitary wing into a reasonable portion. As not many people on the table knew each other everyone was being polite and not pointing out that there was only 1 of each item for each person.

Lots of us were hungry for the rest of the event as the same thing had happened at other tables. Sadly the food & drink is often the main thing people remember about the wedding. So all that time spent on colour schemes, themes, table names, favours etc, etc was a waste of time if your guests end up leaving early to get food.

It really was

I agree, @Isthisreasonable - wasting money on silly favours, or chair tie backs etc when it could be spent on decent food, which people would appreciate more.

This would not go down very well with some people but as a vegan guest recently, I was prepared for the usual one option on the menu, only to find all the food was suitable for vegans, including the various canapés, so that everyone could tuck in happily. It was fab. But I can imagine someone else would be posting about looking forward to a hog roast or whatever and having to put up with an all vegan menu 😂

Family wedding. Posh venue £££££££. Reportedly the whole thing cost well into the 6 figures.

sat down to eat. Great. Starters brought out, vegetable tart.

except me. The “vegetarian” option was salmon 😂😂😂

I think likely people were more than happy with what was offered. Vegan food done well is great.

now if they’d been warned in advance the menu was vegan, there’d have been whinging and refusal to attend/people sneaking in bacon sandwiches. The threads here on vegan weddings are hilarious.

stick a decent vegan option in front of most people though and they’ll eat it with no complaint- and often in preference to the meat option leaving none for the vegans 😂

I spent over half our budget on food and drinks. I was determined that no one would be hungry!

We had a hot and cold option in both meat and veggie. And amazing canapés. There was masses of food, it was wonderful!

I've been vegetarian for a very long time. Asked and delighted to be bridesmaid a few times in the late 80s. Wedding reception at the local posh golf club. On top table and served fish. Politely said sorry not mine I'm the vegetarian. Chef came out and said all vegetarians eat fish. Now the bride was from overseas and the groom's family had helped with the organisation (all OK, lovely families). So I knew the grooms mother had correctly ordered the vegetarian meals because her daughter (groom's sister) was also a veggie. She was not happy and let him know. But the groom's sister and I, chief bridesmaid, ended up with something really crappy to eat. I never dared ask if the golf club had apologised.

Edible Sand

^

Da fuck

Wonder if it’s the same venue as I went to- still insisting fish is vegetarian in 2018 😂

Dying at edible sand!

The ones that stand out are where you have to sit there for ages, tipsy and starving, listening to a best man drone on and on. Speeches should always come after at least one course of food!

The meal at mine was a hog roast and I’m still mortified a decade later that I’d forgotten one my relatives (who I don’t see often) didn’t eat red meat and she didn’t put any dietary requirements on the rsvp. There were veggie options but only for those I knew about. Luckily one of the sides was a Greek salad which is her favourite food and there were loads of chips and bread etc.

Went to a wedding years ago, it was my then DPs family. I'd never met them. He didn't know them that well. The food was delicious, but random. Almost like a "pot luck supper". So there was lasagne, chicken pie, cottage pie, pasta. But no sides/veg. It was all self service but eating chicken pie and lasagne felt weird.

Another wedding. Bride and groom were stuck up twats who always talked about how much money they had. And that they lived in Surrey which is just such a nice area. It's so lovely in Surrey. You should move to Surrey. Blah. We were served a cold beige buffet. Nothing wrong with that. I love a beige buffet.
Then in the evening the leftovers from earlier were bought out.

I went to another wedding that was amazing. Posh, mega experience venue. I was sitting on that odd table you get of "people who don't fit into any other group" so some of them knew each other. Most of us didn't. Amazing food which we'd pre-ordered. Leg of lamb, steak type stuff with plenty of potatoes and veg. Meals come out, I tuck in and then realise every other woman on my table had given their meat to their partner. They were horrified that I actually ate the entire portion and didn't just pick at the veg in a suitably ladylike manner! To be fair, that could be why they were all slim and I'm not.

I went to a lovely wedding years ago.
As we drove up to the church at 3pm, a stream of fire engines and police cars zoomed by.

Whispers round the church the reception venue had a fire.

After the service the police were waiting to inform the bride and groom their venue was not going to be accessible. The police had been talking to the vicar's wife who opened up the church hall. We were all sent across the road to the pub for a drink.

A team of volunteers at the church, intended recption venue team, and police sorted out tables/decor/DJ coming to new venue.
The reception venue paid for the evening meal which was fish'n'chips. Not the posh menu planned.

The bride took it all in her stride and we still talk about how incredible it turned out.

Went to a vegan wedding once. Starter was some peppers and mushrooms. I can’t stand mushrooms. Main was a stuffed mushroom so I couldn’t eat that either. Dessert was a mushy summer fruit pudding that just wasn’t very nice.
Turns out over half the other non vegan guests weren’t too keen either as the takeaway down the road was doing a roaring trade of wedding guests nipping out for a burger

@Gymmum82 wonder if we were at same wedding 😂 he was vegan she wasn't in fact he was the only vegan there but he insisted the whole thing was vegan. The food was honestly crap and they paid a fortune! Everyone went to McDonald's 😂

Friends got married abroad and threw a party on their return. The only food on offer all night was an assortment of crisps along a buffet table.
A crisp buffet.

Wow, what wonderful people from the Church and the police.

I mean, what a wedding day . Beyond your worst nightmare, but it does show that wherever there is trouble, there is also always the good.

We went to a very expensive wedding a few years ago where they cocked up the food service so badly that some tables were getting starters as others were getting mains cleared. By the time the evening guests arrived at 8.15pm the deserts were just getting served. Our plates were cleared at 9pm, the first dance was at 9.30 and the evening buffet opened at 10.

We got laughed at by some when planning our wedding. We had a buffet, but served by catering staff of steak pie or macaroni, with potatoes garlic bread and veggies. I have no idea if the caterers are used to sumo wrestlers or what but they went round offering seconds and thirds of everything. They still had leftovers to give their own staff and venue staff to take home. They also managed to rustle up a generous plate of food for a veggie who announced just 4 days before that they didn't like cheese, carrots or mushrooms.

My BIL (they had a registry office wedding ten years previously but now SIL, even after three kids, wanted a proper church thing - they called it a blessing - with bridesmaids and wedding list etc). We figured wedding at noon, reception probably at 2 or 3pm and we'd just skip the dancing/party bit as I was heavily pregnant.
The couple were notoriously late to everything (missed our wedding ceremony), and were over an hour late to their own. After the delayed ceremony they stood around for photos (one drink was offered) but I wasn't feeling great so we drove to the reception, as did a few others. When we got there they had only just started setting up so we sat in the car listening to the cricket. Finally we were told we could come in (now about 4pm) and most other guests had arrived. We sat at our table (set for 8 people) and there was a single bottle of wine on it. My mil was furious as it seemed the bride had put her own family on the top table but none of her husband's family!
Then finally the wedding party arrived and we thought great food at last! But no, speeches. Long ones by the 'brides' family. At 6pm, having sat down at 4pm, one speech maker said to help yourself to the wine on the tables - someone had to shout out that the bottles had not been opened. Scramble for that but one bottle between 8 (or 7 as I wasn't drinking) did not go down well.
We gave up on the food and left at 7pm, six hours after the ceremony, and three hours after we had been allowed to sit. No food had arrived and we heard afterwards they didn't serve any til 8pm.