Pre-wedding email. Bit weird?

[bookworm8500]

Invited to a colleague's wedding evening do and had an email come through to all guests (unless it has just come to me 🤣). Maybe I've just hit the nail on the head 🤣

It states, amongst loads of other instructions, that,

'A small buffet will be provided. This is for all guests to enjoy, so please be considerate with your portion sizes'.

I've never seen anything like that before! AIBU to find that very weird to be on a pre-wedding email?!

I'd feel the same. They're just cheapskates insulting their guests, I wouldn't want to join in on the festivities with people like that.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I can't eat most of what people offer me as I have various intolerances so I'd be one of the people only nibbling at the buffet - so it's got absolutely nothing to do with wanting to scoff more than my share and everything to do with the behaviour of the bride and groom (and it was me who mentioned light refreshments earlier :))

Just a thought but amongst my friendship groups I'm not sure I'd have most of their email addresses. We communicate by phone or WhatsApp. Very occasionally if I'm booking tickets or sending a link for something I'd have their email.
The more i think about it the more odd it feels

Well at least they're providing food I guess. Worst wedding I went to was an evening do where there was no food at all for evening guests and we weren't warned beforehand either. We'd driven a considerable way to get there and were starving. We headed to the expensive hotel bar in search of crisps or bar snacks (as did many other guests) but all they had was dry roasted peanuts 🤮. Ended up leaving early and getting McDs on the way home. We weren't the only ones!

My mum went to a small event once for a buffet. And about 3 people went up and just filled their plates. Nearly took all the sandwiches between themselves.

One turned to face my mum and she made a point at looking at the womans plate, then her own empty plate and the queue behind her. Very good with stares 🤣.

Woman at least looked embarrassed. But plenty of people are so self absorbed tjst they just take plates of food with no regard to other people.

Then there is just the wastage cause most of it isnt eaten. Maybe the email is for certain people they know but it is sent to everyone.

This is quite possible.

So this is an evening do, you’ll be paying for your drinks and the buffet won’t be generous. But they are expecting a really nice gift.

This has happened to us several times. After the first time we started taking food with us, just in case.

That along with some experiences of extortionate venue drinks prices made us determined to have tons of food and a free bar at our wedding.

I also think people lose perspective when they get married. The ceremony is about the bride and groom but the reception is about the guests. Stuff that is important is food (feed them early and feed them well), music (it needs to be good) and somewhere to sit (a venue with not enough chairs is not fun for older guests).

Stuff that doesn’t matter is what shoes the bridesmaids wear (no one will notice - get them to wear their own shoes) and wedding favours (massive waste of money).

Absolutely

You had to confirm attendance via their wedding website, so they have everyone's email address from that. It's like a proper wedding platform website thing. Didn't exist in my day 🤣 There have been multiple emails with instructions.

It's a good idea, I went to a friend's wedding, a big marquee in small village with no shops. They had a buffet for the main meal and you were called up by table number. Mine was the last table. I got a portion of savoury rice. That was it! Someone donated me their bread roll. And this was a partly served buffet- the mains, such as meat and fish had servers portioning it out.

Stuff that doesn’t matter is what shoes the bridesmaids wear (no one will notice - get them to wear their own shoes) and wedding favours (massive waste of money).

Exactly. We were on a tight budget so junked all the unnecessary tat and instead spent the money saved on food and drink for our guests.

Thankfully, that's the one and only time it's happened to us, although I don't go to that many weddings, especially not in recent times. That wedding is still talked about some 30 years later, for all the wrong reasons! So rude and thoughtless towards people who have made the effort to attend, bought a gift and expensive drinks. Since then, I always make sure I have a big, late lunch, just in case!

That was the fault of the hosts though for not providing enough food and instructions to serving staff.

Doesn’t mean a rude email and under catering is a good idea..

That's an absolute disgrace. I hope you didn't give a gift (but I bet a list was circulated in the 'invite.')

Like others have said they are probably catering for 60 even though 100 or going.

I remember being at a wedding where the tables were allowed access to the buffet in a certain order, and we were quite near the end - we watched all the piled high plates passing from earlier tables, each holding enough for 2 people, and were looking forward to getting to the seemingly abundant buffet, only to find virtually nothing left - we basically had a plate with a few tattie wedges and some coleslaw.

Sounds like the experience I just shared, except we got tattie wedges and coleslaw instead of rice!

Friends wedding I attended offered canapes with the drinks but there weren't many so we just had 1 each. The actual wedding 'breakfast' was an afternoon tea. Sit down affair in a marquee and for a table of 8, we had 8 finger sandwiches and 8 tiny cakes...so 1 each obviously. I kid you not.

The bride had a diabetic family member who had to be taken to the nearest eatery to get some filling food so she could continue with attending the wedding party. She chose to go home after getting food. As did most of the guests when we realised there was no other food - we all schlepped off to the nearest fast food place - KFC and went home!

Bride and groom had enough money to fly off in a helicopter before afternoon tea had started though...😂

But is it really necessary to order masses of extra food (that might go to waste) just because some people are greedy?

If it stops other people going hungry, yes.

Well, we'll have to agree to differ - provided there's plenty to go around so long as people aren't greedy, I think the email in OP's post is a decent way around it, personally. A lot of people just eat far too much in general these days and a wedding reception is supposed to be about celebrating the marriage imo, not eating food aka something we all do every day of the year.

Why would it go to waste? People can take some home or the excess can be donated. There are always hungry people to be fed.

You simply cannot undercater as a host. If people are hungry and have big appetites then so be it. They are your guests.

People can take food home or the staff can. As most people do we made sure the photographer had a decent meal, the band etc. You just need the food to be plentiful.

You simply cannot undercater as a host. Of course you can, and many hosts do.
You can't win with hosting if there are greedy or inconsiderate guests, and no matter how plentiful the food and drink is, someone will criticise.

We’ll have to agree to disagree. I want all my guests to have enough food and drink. That is more important that the flowers, the photographer, my shoes..
I genuinely wouldn’t care if someone ate twice as much as the next person. They might have a big appetite.

I wouldn’t have had a buffet though so this issue wouldn’t have happened.