Bride infuriates mother with 'offensive' wedding menu. AITA? UPDATED.
When this bride infuriates her mom with her wedding menu, she asks Reddit:
"AITA for not serving meat at my wedding?"
My fiancé (26f) and i (26f) are currently planning our wedding and despite us being on a low budget, we somehow are managing to make this wedding work out smoothly.
After searching for affordable catering, we found a catering company that would not only have us the option of having people served instead of a buffet style (not that that’s bad, but it just wasn’t what we wanted) but had a whole menu that was entirely vegetarian.
I’m talking stuffed portobello mushrooms, stuffed peppers, lentils, scalloped potatoes, quinoa pilaf, bread pudding, and a whole lot of other tasty mains and sides.
I am not vegetarian. I do eat fish on occasion, but my fiancé is completely vegetarian.
We also have several people coming to our wedding from different cultural backgrounds...and people are upset. including my fiancés Jewish father, our Jewish roommate, and Muslim friends of ours, all of whom have never eaten pork. We also have gluten sensitive friends.
And most of all, i don’t want my fiancé of all people to have to question the food she is eating on her wedding day, when that’s a problem she struggles with almost every time we go out to eat with friends and family, or go to family functions at other peoples homes.
She usually ends up eating chips and guac, or just sides of potatos. She can’t even eat the tortillas my family makes traditionally because it contains lard and that’s “just how wella made them”.
i had been keeping my mom included in the planning for our wedding, so today I decided to show her the catering company that we had been thinking of. The first thing she asked was “what about people who aren’t veggie?”
And in response I said “people can’t eat veggie for one meal?” And she just got quiet. I again tried to hype up the menu, stating “doesn’t the menu look good though?”
And mentioned everything stated above, and she, again, was silent for a good 10 seconds and said that one of the sides just looked good, and moved on.
Sometimes it’s hard for me to read my moms emotions, sense she’s not very confrontational, and her mind wanders quite a bit (her words, not mine) so i wasn’t sure if I pissed her off or not.
There hasn’t necessarily been any drama surrounding this, but there is already existing drama considering this is a wedding with two brides. And I’m afraid of this decision creating more drama for us to have to deal with.
I thought I was being inclusive to everybody by not serving meat at my wedding, but now I’m second guessing myself. Anybody friend I talk to is going to say what i want to hear. So I’m asking Reddit instead. Even better if you eat meat and find yourself in this situation. Would I be the asshole?
I am truly not trying to claim my mother is the asshole. Nor did she say anything necessarily bad. She just asked a question. I merely was second guessing my decision because she said something. I was worried it would become a bigger issue.
There is a section on our website that provides people with the option of listing allergies they have so we can plan accordingly. Also, we plan to have the full menu listed on our website, which will also state that it is fully vegetarian. AITA?
Before we give you OP's upate, let's take a look at some of the top responses:
kaliblaze writes:
NTA, but I’m side-eyeing you a bit for letting your friends and family constantly sideline your fiancée. That dynamic where there’s never food for her is horrible. I would have had some big fights with my family, and refused to come if they weren’t going to make some attempts at including my partner.
(As it happens, I’m the one with dietary restrictions, and his family is lovely about it, particularly his aunt who always hosts Christmas.)
OP replied:
This is… a fair assumption. I wasn’t able to include more regarding this because of the character limit. Most times we don’t know what Food is offered until we get there. I didn’t even start eating fish up till recently. Before this, i was also vegetarian for years.
My family does try, especially my sisters, but my family is big. So they don’t often remember that they need to include exclusively veggie food when most of the meals consist of meaty Mexican and Italian dishes. We’ve eaten veggie for years so it has kind of turned into a losing battle.
“Speaking to Brick walls” and all that. Her family does the same, though, it’s usually when we make plans to eat out. That’s why for once i wanted to plan an event for my future wife where she could try everything if she wanted. I didn’t want her to be limited.
disastrousnail7 writes:
NTA. People eat vegetarian meals literally all the time without blinking. But the minute the menu is vegetarian by someone else’s choice they seem to wig out. I mean, seriously, how many of us eat pasta dishes with no meat in them? (The answer is lots of people).
Bottom line: Your wedding so your choice. If they don’t like the food, they’re welcome to order a pizza when they get home or to their room that night.
swillshop writes:
You are doing great. I can cut your mom slack for having her doubts; you say she's not making a big deal, just expressed some uncertainty. That's nothing horrible.
I'm vegetarian, as is my whole family. I'm fine being around meat, but it would be extremely hard for my family. I married a meat-loving guy from a meat-loving family. They were completely gracious about the fact that we served no meat (for rehearsal dinner and for the reception).
They understood that it would have been impossible for my family to serve meat. And they knew they could get some meat before/after; there was no need to expect it for those specific meals.
Been married almost a quarter century. Both sides of our families and we understand and respect one another. My husband and kids would never eat meat at my parents' home.
Even though my husband and I didn't cook meat in our house, we provided my in-laws with restaurant prepared meat when they visited.
It's called grace - accommodating others as much as you can and them accommodating you as much as they can - everyone supporting and respecting each other's values and boundaries. NTA.
icefirecat writes:
NTA for sure. It baffles me that this is such an issue for so many people…but it’s unfortunately true.
While my fiancée’s family (also two upcoming brides!) respects her choice to not eat meat, there are rarely any exceptions or special considerations made for her. She’s used to just eating what she can, but it’s not ideal. For our upcoming wedding, all of the cocktail hour canapés will be vegetarian.
They’re delicious and we’re very excited about them! For the main meal, both appetizers (soup and salad) will be vegetarian as well and the entrees will have an option of meat, fish, or vegan. We’re lucky to have a few options.
The entire menu is also gluten free, which is incredible for our GF or celiac guests. My fiancée is so excited that the cocktail hour will be vegetarian and that she can have everything. It’s her day too and I’m so happy that she’s happy! (I do eat meat, for the record).
If you’re in a position where you can have a secondary entree option with meat, perhaps it’s worth it to keep the peace (as much as I would love to say don’t bother keeping the peace, I know it can be complicated and nuanced in these situations). If not, stating your menu on the website is more than enough
catsintherain writes:
NAH. You can choose not to serve meat, but just know that you’re going to disappoint people, especially if you don’t let them know ahead of time.
It’s the same situation as weddings without alcohol. People expect certain things at a wedding dinner, so if you choose not to provide it, of course people will be disappointed.
I also come from a culture where weddings are a time to serve good food, as a symbol of fortune for the married couple. Serving only vegetarian food would come across as either the family being stingy, or the family being too poor to afford meat. But then again, that’s my culture and might not apply to you
And now, OP's major update:
First off, thank you everyone for your responses! Its not as popular as some of the other threads on this subreddit but I sure wasn't expecting so many people to respond to my post or even see it.
This is kind of an update, kind of not. I mostly wanted to make this post to clarify some things from my previous post as well as go over certain decisions I've talked over with my fiancé since posting.
Most commenters in the original post seem to think that I am accusing my mom of being the AH in this situation. From my unedited original post I can kinda understand why.
But it was genuinely not my intention. I am not angry at my mom. I didn't even think our interaction was bad. Neither does my fiancé. I just stated my interaction with her because she was the first of what I thought would be many similar interactions of people asking why I don't want meat served at my wedding.
I saw some comments saying my family was inconsiderate to my fiancé and I'd like to clarify. My mom largely cooks the meals for my families get togethers. So when there are "veggie looking" meals that have ingredients such as lard or gelatin, it isn't because she's trying to be inconsiderate or a dick.
When I mentioned her being forgetful I genuinely meant it. She has a medical condition (wont say what) that she has been recently getting regular treatments for. There is no cure for it, and over the past few years it has caused a lot of confusion for her.
She used to not be this forgetful, and would regularly try to make us veggie dishes when she knew we were visiting, but because I now eat fish, she sometimes either thinks that this extends to my fiancé, or she forgets that certain ingredients are technically meat products.
She tries to make "Wellas tortillas" with crisco instead of lard when she remembers, but she usually unfortunately doesn't.
I thought stating our genders at the beginning would be enough indication but if it wasn't clear, we are both women. Yes, my mom loves her and is accepting. Anyone in my family that didn't approve of this was not invited.
Since making this we agreed that we should also have a heads up listed on our RSVP's when we send them out instead of just the website. We don't want to assume that all of our guests will be tech savvy enough to find the menu on our website, much less scan the barcode to get to it.
We will have a section listed for when they RSVP asking what everyone's food allergies are, if any, and 100% intended to modify the menu as needed. We have not booked this catering yet and they are pretty accommodating to switching up the menu if necessary. I will try to clear up more in the comments if I can. Thanks everyone for reading!