Wedding menu

[imnewhere2024]

DP and I recently got engaged (yay) so we are starting to plan the wedding. We are at very early stages but have run into a very interesting question. DP and I are both vegetarian for ethical reasons with our families and most of our friends being meat eaters. Venues are asking our preferences for menus so they can provide us costs so we need to make a choice on whether to provide meat or do a vegetarian only dinner.

For clarity, when we go out to dinner with meat eaters we have no issue with people ordering a meat option, but given we are the ones footing the bill, it feels like we have a say over what they eat. Honestly, we don’t feel good about paying for meat to be consumed on our wedding day, and would be offering a decent range of veggie options (not your bog standard risotto or tofu loaf etc) Friends have never complained about our dietary choices when we go to their homes or events, its pretty easy these days to cater for and we are not picky eaters at all but I feel weird imposing our vegetarian ideas on them. Has anyone faced the same issue issue or have any insight ?

I think the attitude re paying is odd to, what if you have children who want to try meat, will you refuse to buy it in all circumstances?

I eat meat. I'm derogatory about people who can't go an afternoon without eating meat. Because I think they're stupid.

Not sure how much more clearly I can put it.

Everyone should eat vegetarian meals some of the time.

The little darlings can take their pockets money to McDonald's when they're old enough.

Italian veggie food is wonderful and guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser. I'd just go with that

not even going to dive into the topic of veggie child raising.

The point was - it’s not a random restaurant meal where everyone is paying for themselves and it’s a random Tuesday. It’s our wedding and the day is being paid for by us, so we are allowed to restrict meat if we want as it crosses ethical boundaries.

It’s one meal, I’m sure the guests will get over their discomfort for 1 meal. Go with the veggie option.

Dh and I are vegetarians are our wedding was completely vegetarian. No one complained. Even my dad who never goes a day without meat.

id prefer meat but I’d eat it and not make a fuss. However, I’ve never had a decent meal in teatro or had good service. The food is always a wait and I’d be worried about their capability of catering such a large scale. It’s also really echoey with poor acoustics. Reviews on trip advisor are also awful.

I was on the fence when I posted but have been convinced to go all veggie.

re kids - it’s not the topic I want to discuss but if you can’t live your life without knowing we would raise them to respect their elders and our role as their parents. They will be smart and amazing, so if they decide at an adult age to eat meat then I say go forth and be happy. Just as I would expect all family to respect our role as their parents and follow our instruction to Provide veggie food should they feed them. Not that this is any of your business but hope you can move on with hour life now

The OP addressed it. It's literally got nothing to do with the thread. There's no 'gotcha' there.

I'm not vegetarian but eat quite a lot of vegetarian food and would have no problem at all being served a vegetarian meal at the wedding of two vegetarians

Oh interesting. We’ve had amazing nights there and a friend had a 30th bday / engagement party and it was fab. Thanks for the heads up

I've never really eaten much veggie food but I would expect it at your wedding and I'm sure your friends and family will too.

Vegan would be a lot harder (though I'd still expect it) - but you should be fine. And it's your day and your choice.

My sister recently made a mushroom wellington which all her family loved, and as you say - there must be loads of pasta options. Many people might not even notice that there isn't any meat. Vegetable lasagne or moussaka, cauliflower cheese, stuffed peppers....hmm, I'm making myself feel hungry now.....

If anyone had the nerve to complain then they'd be totally CFs.......

I would 100% serve veggie food. If people can’t eat veggie for one meal then they are extremely childish and not worth you worrying about.

We are both vegetarian.
Family are all meat eaters
We have a few vegetarian friends.

our wedding meal and food in the evening was vegetarian only.

We married in 1998 and as it was our wedding we chose how we wished to celebrate….a celebration for us had nothing to do with animals being killed. These days I think more and more people are happy to try new foods so I really wouldn’t worry, no one’s going to starve because of one vegetarian meal

This made me smile, although sorry to hear of your allergy of course. I'm vegetarian and don't like mushrooms, we never cook anything with mushrooms at home as a result. I also have no issue eating out, it's easy to eat vegetarian meals out that don't include mushrooms.

Although you seem to have a highly restrictive diet given the long long list of foods that you don't eat so I think any wedding menu would be unlikely to be to your taste even if there was meat or fish involved in the main.

But it is your day.
Stick to your guns. The menus from your venue look lovely.

In my experience though, older family members are more likely to be bothered about the choices being pizza or pasta rather than there not being any meat.
It depends how old you're talkig about. My grandparents in their 90s would have struggled with that.

Oh that’s interesting. Didn’t think about the non traditional dining. My DP and his family are Scottish / English so probably expect a standard meat and two veg meal (even if it was a tofurkey). As it’s a mixed wedding, i didn’t want to go down the Indian food route as that felt a bit gimmicky so went neutral. Thanks for flagging

sadly, we don’t have any surviving grandparents so we are talking uncles / aunts who are 60-70 ish

I wouldn't be impressed by fake chorizo. In my experience, fake meats are horrible.
You've said yourself that you don't like them either, why on earth did you serve it?
There's plenty of lush vegetarian food options as you will well know. I think that's a rather strange thing to have done.

@imnewhere2024
I'm sorry but I think there should be a meat meal to cater for all, how would you like to go to a wedding where meat is all the couple eat, so say cause we eat it you have to it's ridiculous tbh.

My friends had vegetarian food at their wedding, no choice just set meals, which was fine.

But for years I agonised over the fact that I hadn’t given them a choice of vegetarian dishes at my own much smaller wedding.

I found their old wedding invitation and menu card last year, and realised my menu wasn’t bad at all, as there was no choice just a set meal too, on theirs

All that worry for nothing 🤣

So vegetarian is fine, no one will mind, I don’t suppose many people have meat every single day.

Although if you offered me some vegan meals ( thinking that awful cheese) I might not be so pleased 🤣

No, why would I? I always eat meat and high protein.

We had a traditional type meal ( all veggie)
The so called stand in part was a filo pastry parcel , then potatoes and veg.

The children had a veggie pizza choice, just in case

We also had older relatives and my family are pig farmers from Ireland, all was fine.

I feel like if you have an allergy and you're going to be eating at a wedding, the responsibility is on you to bring it to their attention.