Vegan wedding causing issues

[WeddingProblem]

We are getting married in a few months. Registry office then a meal in a restaurant for 40 guests. I’m vegan. My partner and kids are happy to eat vegan for our wedding (they’re a mix of vegan, vegetarian and meat eater) so we have booked a vegan restaurant.

A couple of relatives have told another relative that they’re not happy with the restaurant choice being vegan and might not come to our wedding because of it. The relative asked what the issue is, whether they had any allergies/intolerances, but no, it’s purely because they don’t want to eat a vegan meal.

We haven’t addressed it with them and I’m not sure how to. I’ll definitely wait for them to bring it up. I’m hoping they won’t, but if they do, how would you deal with it? My partner, relative that told me and friends all say to just say it’s a shame if you can’t come but we understand. One person thinks we should change restaurant 😬 but I don’t feel we should have to do that for our wedding and it’s just one meal.

What would you do? Of the people attending, roughly half are vegan or vegetarian and we’ve had lots of positive comments about the restaurant we’ve picked even from some of the meat eaters.

Nice try, but:

I don't disagree that meat is one of the things people can and are evolved to eat. Or that it can be part of a healthy diet.
Do you believe, though, that someone only has a healthy diet if they never eat a meal that does not contain meat and/or dairy?
Put another way, do you believe that one animal-product free meal is going to have an immediate deleterious effect on a person's diet?
Or, for that matter, immediately negatively impact on the food chain and the circle of life?

Their guests should not include anyone who doesn't respect their beliefs, so any meat eater who can't cope is by definition unwelcome. Celebrating "the joining of two lives in a wedding" necessarily and intrinsically requires integrating the beliefs of the people getting married into the day's activities. This is why the ceremony happens in a place of worship if those beliefs are religious. The idea that anyone should be pressured to integrate into their own wedding day something that they consider to be unethical is abhorrent and morally bankrupt and someone who can't understand that shouldn't be a guest at any wedding as they don't have sufficient humanity to bring anything positive to the day.

Good lord, it’s your wedding, your choice. I eat meat but I also enjoy some vegan dishes, why wouldn’t I, if they taste great? Ignore the whiners, do it how you want. Frankly, I’d rather decent vegan food than the crappy chicken so often served at weddings!

Well you're CHOOSING to be obtuse rather than not being able to understand. Plenty of people think raising animals solely to kill them and eat their flesh is unethical. Give me one unethical consideration for having to eat meat at every single meal

So is a church wedding.

You're not getting it. My argument is not that meat should be eaten at every meal. My argument is that deliberately choosing a place that doesn't serve meat or dairy is a spiteful (imo) choice and inflicts someone's ideology on their guests. If you don't want to eat meat or dairy, don't. But at least, at the very, very least, give your guests a choice.

It's the deliberate removal of that choice which makes it ideological bullying imo. And if 'meat eaters can go one meal without eating meat' the converse is true. Vegans can eat one meal with meat. Or, at the very least, provide it.

It's the choice to remove it even as a choice, which is the issue. It comes across as spiteful to me.

Its one meal. Just one.

If i was invited to celebrate my friends or family members wedding and I loved them and they had a belief that was so important to them, and I was in no way harmed by it, why wouldn't I do it for them?

Literally all that I would be asked to do is eat a single plate of food that had no meat or dairy on it (and that the couple had ensured contained nothing i was allergic to)

I'm a raging carnivore. I love meat but I genuinely don't understand why that single plate of vegan food at an occasion that is in no way about the omnivore guest, should be a problem for them.

I like meat. I don't have a set of beliefs around it that matter to me. That's the difference imo.

So there should be a poultry dish, a white meat dish, a red meat dish, a fish dish, a seafood dish, a vegan dish and a vegetarian dish on offer? You've clearly never alerted got catering for a wedding in a formal venue

Oh, for goodness sake!

It is not double standards. Are you completely incapable of logical, critical thinking?

They are not two sides of the same coin.

However, You can't argue with stupid.

We have chosen the restaurant because we like it and it has a great reputation for serving fantastic food. It’s popular with vegans, vegetarians and meat eaters that I know.

I'm so spiteful I didn't put shell fish on my menu, or the quiche dish. Honestly, I don't know how I still have friends!!

Oh I understand alright. I simply DON'T AGREE WITH THEM. I think it's unethical to remove a choice from your guests because of your ideology. I think it is ethical to eat meat, as I believe in the food chain and I believe in a healthy and balanced diet. I also think it is ethical to cater to your guests. I don't think it's 'ethical' to spitefully inflict your unhealthy and zealous ideology on your guests.

You are saying vegans can get away with whatever they want because......'ethical'. Where as meat eaters are not given the same grace. They are expected to suck the disrespect up. You've made it more than clear that you feel only ONE side should be given respect. Claiming vegan is 'ethical' is a convenient EXCUSE. You think I don't see the excuse for what it is.

Strange isn't it, that only ONE (1) sides views here are given 'ethical recognition'. Again, for the what, 10th time, BOTH sides should be respected. It's double standards to give vegans a 'pass' via 'ethical'. Convenient, but it's double standards nevertheless.

And on that note, I think I'll bid you all bye (I have work to do anyway) and hide this thread because we are going around in circles. I say both sides should be catered for, you think 'ethics' is a respectable get out clause. I don't. I see the double standards. And I won't ever change my mind. In fact, the complete obtuseness on this thread of why it's ok to cater for one and not the other, the complete disrespect to meat eaters has only strengthened my view. This thread has actually hardened my view against vegans, and the arguments have not made vegans look good at all. So, I'm going to hide this thread.

Spiteful and bullying? I’m actually getting quite concerned for you at this point.

We are paying for food, drinks, hotels, train tickets, have asked for no gifts, are catering for allergies/intolerances, have arranged for plainer to more complex meals including very normal pasta, potatoes, rice etc, have been kind and reasonable to cheeky relatives…..yet we are spiteful and bullying and inflicting ideology because we have chosen a restaurant for one meal, that we like and which will provide a huge amount of choice, except non vegan foods.

I wish the spiteful people and bullies I’d known in my life behaved like that. 🤔

Such a bully! 🤪

What you are (deliberately?) not getting is that it's perfectly possible for people who eat meat to enjoy a meal – ONE meal – that doesn't contain it. They do not need an option of meat in order to survive or to be happy. Unlike e.g. an observant Jew who needs a not-bacon option, or a person with a nut allergy who needs a not-nut roast option.

Also, at almost no weddings do you get much 'choice', if any.

I have heard it all now that you've said it's 'spiteful' not to include meat for ONE meal on a day where you are paying for all the food, drinks and your guest's hotel room.

As a meat eater I would not find it disrespectful to be offered a meal I am able to eat, even if it doesn’t contain meat or dairy. Why would that be disrespectful? It’s just food that meets my dietary requirements (as I am not an obligate carnivore)… and there’s nothing unhealthy in eating one meal without meat or dairy; quite the opposite!

Yay. C minus.

Off you pop. 👋

It's their wedding, they choose whatever food/venue/restaurant/decoration/music/etc. they want. As a guest, you are not obliged to like it or even to go, you can refuse for whatever reason. You can't, however, try and impose your wants on the bride and groom and make them change their wedding for you. We see it so often here where people say "childfree wedding" meaning some guests then just don't go. Everyone says it's their wedding and they do what they like. Same here.

Soooooooo triggered!

Of course you have a choice. Sit alone in your car outside the reception venue and eat a chicken sandwich in spiteful misery. Good riddance.

The food available at EVERY wedding is the food that is permissable under the beliefs of the people getting married. A meat eater who doesn't eat rabbits because they are cute, or doesn't eat particular animals that are known to be more highly intelligent, or doesn't eat veal or foie gras because of the additional cruelty, would obviously not be expected to make provisions for the guests at their wedding who like rabbit or foie gras etc to eat them, they would choose a menu that fits with their beliefs. Would you expect devout muslims to provide bacon and non-halal other meats at the wedding reception?

I can't believe that @ThatBlackCat is still trolling this thread.

As an omnivore who eats all the food groups and enjoys them all I don't understand their flawed logic at all. I have vegans and vegetarians in my family and enjoy vegan, vegetarian and non veggie meals alike.

I don't think I have ever been so tempted to make personal insults against one poster, but I won't because I'll be banned.

I hpe that your wedding feast is delicious as it sounds it will be @WeddingProblem

Well then if I invite a vegan for a bbq I will tell them to 'suck it up for one meal' and just eat some meat.
The double standards are terrible. Meat-eaters are expected to cater for vegans. Yet vegans are not expected to cater for meat-eaters. Then stuff vegans then. They can eat meat for one meal. "suck it up!"*

Are you going to tell Muslims to eat Gammon and chops and have a pint of lager, ' hey cime on , suck it up! What's your problem?" Gp on, try telling a Jewish person to suck it up and eat a mixed meat donner kebab. See how far that gets you.

Are you a bit daft that you dont get it?

Meat eaters eat everything including peanut butter, beans on toast, lentils soup,chana masala, porridge etc. Vegans cant eat everything.

This thread is talking about one meal, that's it, just one. Nobody will suffer malnutrition if they eat it.

How about having a bit of respect on both sides. It is the bride and grooms wedding. How many times do we hear 'your wedding, your choice' when the couples want a child free wedding. Now the couple want a meat free wedding and there is outrage ,theres a double standard for you right there.

As a veggie( not vegan) I dont need anyone to tell to suck it up as I have to take my own food by default to bbq unless want to eat just colslaw. So save your breath about telling people to 'suck it up" We are used to not being catered for.
Actually when we are catered for there's usually a 'snooze you lose' attitude when the meat eaters help themselves to the veggie stuff at a buffet, such as the veg samosas,onion bhajis ets. It was so bad my manager always told the team I had to have first pick after she noticed there was only a bit of salad left for me once (we all had contributed to the food)

Do you know unintelligent this post makes you sound?!

There is no moral reason a meat-eater can’t eat a vegan meal. Have a little think and see if you understand the difference!

This thread is batshit. OP and her husband are paying for the wedding they want to have. They have invited guests who have complete free will about whether they want to come and whether they want to sneak in a burger afterwards! I cannot get over some of these replies 😆