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.

Oh lord, what a nightmare!! 😂😂

My brother is a vegetarian.

We still laugh about the time that Mum was planning a meal and said she’d do him some chicken instead of the beef. Her incredulity that he couldn’t “just have chicken” still makes us laugh. She was genuinely of the opinion that vegetarians could eat chicken. Fuck knows why, it’s mad. Every time we talk about food now one of us will say “just have some chicken then” 😂😂

I had a phase as a vegetarian and I am full of admiration for vegans/vegetarians. I might give it another whirl one day when my health is more stable.

Yep been there too but with bones
My relatives in Ireland would make a pot of potatoes, cabbage and ham. All stewing in the pot together for hours
They'd dish me up the potatoes and cabbage from the pot 🤣🤣

OMG yes, this. I remember at one occasion being told to leave lots of normal-yet-vegetarian food because something had been prepared especially for me, and when it arrived, it was all fish. I couldn't eat it. I couldn't turn my nose up at it either. I can't remember what I did, but it probably involved getting someone to take it away surreptitiously.
Most of us have been to events where we didn't like the food. Hog roast, FFS. Most guests loved it. The whole thing made me want to puke, which was just as well because the alternative was, well, just a fake 'alternative' in a bap, and I don't like fake meat either. That's my issue to deal with. The happy couple had the catering they wanted, which is as it should be.

I wouldn’t go to a hog roast
My kids school did a raffle each year with the prize of a chicken. Killed of course
They stopped when I complained but for years we’d see a kid walking down the steps with a dead chicken in a carrier bag.

In terms of what I did whilst others ate their five courses
well through a lack of food to fill me up I think I got fairly sloshed ( vegetarian booze of course, they got that right at least 🙏)

Meat eaters eat non meat. Vegans can eat meat and dairy but choose not to

Oh look. They're back.

However, you aren't wrong.

Fuck em. They've had far too much traction on this thread already!

Can't believe this is the vegan board, judging by the number of vegan haters.

As someone who was kept alive by the commercial killing of pigs for over 20 yrs, I would be a hypocrite if I then said I had developed as so call superior moral conscience and decide to become vegan.

Just a shame that so many vegans seen to think one can pick and choose what they are vegan for but if push came to shove between dying and living they would at least eat dairy if not meat.

I take it most vegans also refuse all the vaccines grown in eggs over the years. Athough recombinants are growing theya re still in the minority

OP has moved on with her vegan wedding. No one cares about your strained analogies, whether you are vegan or how you were saved by pigs. You are not attending the wedding and her uncle can bring his own ham sarnie.

I hope the OP has a lovely wedding and a great time at the restaurant, regardless of recalcitrant meat obsessed uncles.

You wouldn’t be a hypocrite
I imagine most vegans today were fed animals in their younger years

If you think of veganism as being a bit like a religion, then it can make more sense. As an example, years ago I worked in neonates in a hospital with a large muslim population. At the time, there was a very new and exciting (now mainstream) lung medicine, that you would squirt down the breathing tubes of preterm babies, and there were several different versions: pig derived, cow derived, and artificial. It became very rapidly apparent that the pig version was so much better that it could be literally the difference between life and death for incredibly fragile micro premmies. So one of the consultants went out to the local imams, and they agreed to issue a fatwa that this was not food, it was medicine, and as such was halal as "Allah believes in saving babies' lives". In a similar way, some vegans can absolutely and legitimately believe that medicines preserving human life are the one valid exception to vegan lifestyle.

But This has nothing to do with vegan food. You would turn down any restaurant that didn’t serve the limited food you eat. this kind of fussy eating is rare.

Popping on again to say that one of the best burgers I've eaten recently (as a meat eater) was a plant based burger, ironically, at Beefeater!

The person calling OP selfish and bullying for inflicting a vegan menu on their guests is bonkers! Your wedding, your choice. Plenty of people choose things for their wedding that others wouldn't have. You're not there for the food, you're there to celebrate the marriage of two people you supposedly like.

Oh lordy how ridiculous! Your wedding sounds lovely OP and as it's YOUR wedding you and your spouse should do it exactly how you want it. Anyone self centered enough to complain about your hospitality can take a hike and it'll be money well saved for you. Have a wonderful celebration!

Meat eater here and as its your wedding and youre very generously footing the bill and stating no gifts then id be more than happy to attend the venue of your choice. I would be looking forward to trying something different that I wouldn't normally order.
Its your day you celebrate it how you see fit congrats have a lovely day.

I am a meat eater and often try the veggie option from a menu if it sounds interesting/tastey

Theres a big leap between veggie and vegan though.

(Of course a vegan wedding is fine)

I’m a pescatarian who sometimes ends up veggie for a while until I miss salmon too much. I went to a vegan wedding a few years ago and the food was amazing. There was even a chocolate fountain! Everyone said it was the best wedding they’d ever been to (it included fireworks to metal music and an incredible pole dance demonstration) but best of all the delicious and very plentiful food for both the sit down wedding breakfast and the evening buffet.

The complainers don’t eat ONLY meat - they eat carbs, veg, fruit and salad anyway surely so they are being ridiculous!

W⚓️

😁

It's your wedding and you are generously paying for people to eat. Surely a relative can suck it up for one meal out of the 21 meals they will eat that week. My family are carnivores but would all eat a vegan meal at a wedding. It's really not unreasonable to go to the restaurant of your choice so stick to your guns and have a lovely day.