Am I unreasonable to be p***ed off with my daughter and her wedding?

[kathycraig79]

My daughter's wedding is this summer, we've been planning it together for months and we have genuinely had a good time doing so. However, my daughter is a vegan, and she is adamant that the wedding also must be vegan. This is fine with me, I support her wish and this is for her to decide. We sent the invitations (and I thought it would be a good idea to include the information about vegan catering on the invitations) and we have had many RSVPs basically saying they will not be coming if the food is vegan. I have to say this was unexpected, many of the family are quite traditional, meat-and-two-veg, but I did not expect this to be such a problem.

The thing now is that many of the guests are refusing to come, and my daughter is not willing to budge. I personally don't see the big deal in catering for everyone's tastes, it was a bloody nightmare to book the vegan caterer. I'm really getting frustrated, yesterday my daughter said she was thinking of cancelling the whole thing and thinks the guests are being unreasonable. Maybe I should not have put this information on the invitations?

Thanks Laura. I have actually seen a jackfruit growing on a tree on a farm in a remote part of Asia and really didn't tie up the two!

So an entirely raw meal, comprised of fruit and vegetables. I'd be amazed if that meal had been produced by a vegan catering company. It sounds like the very worst interpretation of vegan food from caterers who haven't a clue, possibly under tight budgetary constraints.

It was the bride's choice apparently. It was pretty grim. Thank god her ethical beliefs didn't extend to the free (non-vegan!) wine procured for her wedding by her winemaker father, as the selection of wines was excellent,

But regardless of menu, if I cared for the bride and groom, I'd go along, smile politely, push my food around my plate, just as I did at the wedding where the chicken was raw, the wedding where I was served calve's liver, and when they hand me fruit cake. I can be a polite and gracious guest, regardless of the food being provided.

Raw fruit and veg with loads of wine? Blimey, everyone at that wedding must have been shitfaced.

The caterer at our wedding kept the vegan food hidden until the vegans came to get food (there were plenty of vegetarian options) as she had found that if it's on display it gets wolfed by other guests as it looks so scrummy and interesting, leaving the vegan guests with no options.

Bonkers behaviour by the guests as many others have said.

It always baffles me why caterers always put so many meat options out, on a buffet for example, leading to vegetarians/vegans complaining 'that the meat eaters have eaten all their food'.

Just because I eat meat, doesn't mean that I only want the meat options. Things like pork pie, sausage roll, sausages, ham sandwiches are all very samey so I would only have say a bit of pork pie and a ham sandwich out of that lot and then I would look for an onion bhaji, cheese and pineapple or egg sandwich as well some classy buffets I go to.

Balanced buffets should probably be 30/40% vegan, 30/40% vegetarian and no more than 20/30% meat and then there are enough options for the vegetarians and vegans, even if they are a minority of guests and enough for people who eat meat to be able to make a balanced selection and not feel that they must only have the items containing meat.

MidniteScribbler
It was the bride's choice apparently.

As in, she specifically asked for those dishes, or she chose them from other options? Sounds very odd to me, unless the decision was driven by cost. Clearly not a balanced or interesting meal. With the exception of the bride, I doubt vegans eating that meal would have enjoyed it any more than the omnivores.

Chucking in event management experience here - providing vegan food is the easiest way to cater for every faith based requirement so no one is offered food that is unacceptable to them. Similarly, if you put the vegan (or vegetarian) food out first, as someone above said, it will all go straight away. The meat eaters won't say oh no, this is ruining our day, lets not it eat - rather they eat the lot immediately - sometimes as they can't tell the difference, other times as it looks so good.

MidniteScribbler
"It was the bride's choice apparently"

Sounds like she was raw vegan - I don't find raw vegan at all satisfying
I do prefer to cook my vegans first

I'd enjoy a vegan meal, indeed an alcohol-free vegan meal. I'd no more expect a vegan to compromise their principles than to demand a Muslim or Quaker host serve alcohol.
If it were more than one day's meals, I would nip out for some cheese / eggs / dead fish / animals, though !

Dietary preferences are NOT comparable to ethical principles
Most people wouldn't break principles they hold truly important, just to satisfy someone's preferences

BigChocFrenzy
Sounds like she was raw vegan - I don't find raw vegan at all satisfying

I wondered that, but it's not even representative of raw vegan food. Whatever that meal was, it wasn't imaginative, balanced, filling or representative of a diet that would not result in malnourishment.

went to a vegan supper the other night. Absolutely bloody delicious.

It's getting harder and harder to predict the DM ones . . .

DownHere do you mean it's been lifted/was a journo? !

Oh FFS it's been used by the Daily Fail. This puts me right off posting on Mumsnet.

Puts me off too :(

Yes Rugger - saw it earlier. No idea if it was a plant though.

.....plant.....In a vegan themed thread? I'll get my coat, but ffs seriously.

Well, this place is tofu of them these days . . .

Is the mail on some sort of commission from mumsnet these days??

I'd imagine a lot of threads are started by journalists - not saying this one was, but it makes sense that it happens. It's very profitable working for the DM - you can make more out of commissions that are never printed than actually getting your stuff in most other outlets. For freelancers, if even one fake thread hits, it'd be worth it.

You'd think MN would delete these threads which end up in the Daily Shite.

We've been trolled good and proper.

I wonder if the DM is getting its own back on the general hatred towards it by many posters on MN.

I wonder if there were any Mumsnetters on the easyJet flight where that family missed the holiday that's on the DM site near the Vegan wedding story. I can't work out if it's about overbooking or paying to sit together, but there's a thread in there somewhere, but I would have thought they would just have the 12 YO sit by himself rather than lose their holiday and run to the DM with a sadface story.

Apologies for my absence - I was away for a couple of days and then could not access my account until I reset my password just now.

Believe me, I do regret putting this on the invitations. My intention was so that a 'scene' would not be started on the day but it has backfired. I am involved with the planning because I am paying for the majority of the wedding - the posters saying I should stay out of it, I am the mother of the bride and isn't the mother usually involved? I could not imagine not helping my daughter with her wedding plans.

I have tried to reason with both sides of this. Most of you have said that I should forget the people who have refused to come, but these are family members we don't get to see too often. There have been differences in the past but I would personally be very upset if they were not involved in this. They have known my daughter since she was born and the thought of them not being around I find almost heartbreaking. I also have to say that I do agree with them on this point, I know I will probably be told off on here for saying this, but why shouldn't an effort be made to cater to everyone? In some ways I think that my daughter's holier-than-thou veganism is as bad as the family's traditional meat-and-two-veg mentality. I fully support my daughter, but I just wish she would try and be more inclusive.

And I am quite frankly horrified that this has ended up on the Daily Mail website (I checked when I read the last few posts). There must be something illegal going on here posting my details and story without permission, and I am worried that my family will see this.

Oh, and I saw the requests for the menu, I will just pull it up on the computer and post the current plan.

Well done Mum for supporting your daughter, it's their day & all about them & their choices. Everyday I see people have life changing events, I am a nurse & it's life in perspective. What is important & what is not. If family cannot respect her choices for a very important day in the brides life, it is their problem. She is asking for them to respect her choice for 1 meal & day in their lives, not make a life long commitment. Sad if they are not there, that is their choice & problem.
Enjoy your daughters wedding & being Mother of the Bride, I loved it, I would have gone naked or worn yellow with pink polka dots had my daughter requested it! She didn't & I had a lovely outfit & big hat & now have happy memories of this day.
Life is about making special memories, that last a life time, not about all the materialistic "crap" that people seem to think is important, it's not!
I hope the happy couple & people who matter to them enjoy their day!