Weddings are high stakes for everyone from the couple getting married to the event planning staff. Even the most simple wedding demands months of planning and thousands of dollars, which is why tension can reach an all-time high when guests don't act as expected.
From the way people dress to the food etiquette, there are a lot of subtleties (and not-so-subtleties) that apply at weddings and don't at regular parties. Needless to say, this can cause a lot of awkward moments.
In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she was wrong to let her 22-year-old son pick up fast food and bring it to a buffet-style wedding reception.
She wrote:
My son (22m) is a picky eater. My cousin was getting married and had a lovely reception with a nice buffet. “Johnny” wasn’t a fan of what was served so I let him leave and get some food.
Word spread among our family of where he was going and a few people asked him to bring things back so he did. We were at a table near the dance floor and you could probably smell it there but nobody in our immediate family had a problem (even the bride and groom).
Apparently, the venue and the family of the bride were appalled and I don’t understand why. It was a great party but he wanted something different and other people did too. So AITA?
EDIT: He’s 22 years old and in college. He has no medical issues; he just has a limited palate. When I said “let” I meant, let him take my car since we all rode together.
FURTHER EDIT: The food was served buffet style: a nice soup, salad, tenderloin, bbq beef, pasta, and a few other selections. It was actually really good for wedding food.
Everyone else who partook in the fast food did so because, well, it was there and tasted good. They didn’t have a problem with the venue's food. Also, as some people said, one or two chicken bones did end up on the floor in the venue. That was unfortunate.
sandiercy wrote:
YTA for sure, you should have arranged something beforehand instead of doing it like this. Oh, and stop enabling your adult son, he is 22 FFS.
c19isdeadly wrote:
One thing to eat it in your car so no-one knows. But but he BROUGHT IT BACK. AND BROUGHT FOOD FOR OTHERS!!!! And ate it next to the dance floor So he made enough of a fuss others gave him orders. I'm honestly astonished.
hmarie176 wrote:
When I was around 17, I was in my cousin’s wedding that had a potluck for the reception. The family members who brought food were the ones whose house you don’t really eat at (sanitation reasons).
My mom stepped away during the reception and came back with McDonald’s for us. Which we then ate in the car where no one could see us. Because that is the polite thing to do if you cannot or will not eat the food at someone’s wedding.
Pair_of_Pearls wrote:
YTA. At most, he should have slipped out, eaten, and returned quietly. Letting it be known and eating at the reception is a VERY AH move. You were rude, disrespectful, and trashy. Apologize and teach your son better. Also, he's 22. Umm, enable much?
mencryforme5 wrote:
Hard YTA. Your son is 22. He can eat before the ceremony, or eat after. Or eat a granola bar in the bathroom. But instead, you and him made a big enough scene of the food not being to his liking that many people knew.
Then he proceeded to bring back dinner for several other people, causing an even bigger scene that was highly disruptive of an insanely expensive formal dinner that you nor any of the other guests getting take out paid for.
I assume that the wedding allowed children at the dinner, but it's unclear why you weren't sat at the kids' table and supervised by the grown-ups.
SearchApprehensive35 wrote:
YTA. It's fast food. It's not a meal one lingers over for hours, it's a meal that one scarfs down in a couple minutes. He should have discreetly slipped out of the events, eaten his fast food off-site, and slipped back in without anyone being the wiser.
The bride and groom may not have minded him eating fast food, but they very much minded him bringing the food back to their reception (at a restaurant no less!), and passing it out to their guests.
That's insulting behavior, and it also probably got them in trouble with the restaurant and possibly charged a penalty fee.
The business could have gotten a health code violation citation over it, so they would absolutely have emphasized in the contract that no outside food can be brought in.
Clearly, no one on this thread sides with OP and her son.