Virtually nobody is going to a wedding just for the food. However, when you’ve driven several hours for a wedding, you expect you’ll at least get a meal. And, if it isn’t too much to ask, a slice of the wedding cake. Even a cup cake would be okay! For one woman in New Jersey, she was shocked to find the wedding venue she drove to was lacking food. So little, most people were leaving hungry.
On Reddit’s Wedding Shaming forum, OP posted that she “drove 5 1/2 hours for a wedding with almost no food at all.” She also claims all of the guests had to drive several hours to attend, making it a ‘destination wedding.’ OP said the first annoyance was the entire ceremony was incredibly long (approximately two hours) and completely in Latin. Being a dead language, most of the guests didn’t understand a word.
The guest was excited to at least sit down and have some grub after the incomprehensible ceremony. What she found at the reception hall was one appetizer: “A giant pile of chips and a bowl of salsa.” The guest went on to say, “Look, I’m not a snobby person. I wasn’t expecting gold-encrusted steak on a platter. I just wanted FOOD. For about an hour, all I had in my system were the few chips I could snag from the rabid crowd and several glasses of wine.”
However, a hangry situation turned into a worse one for many of the guests. The wedding dinner wasn’t really a ‘dinner’ at all, but instead a super small taco buffet with a “few tins of meat, rice, beans, and sides.” She said the first tables to be called ate almost all of the miniscule servings and then the rest of the room went hungry until another small serving was added to the platters.
Then comes the wedding cake, right? As OP explained, “The bride and groom cut a slice out of a wedding cake in front of everyone… and then the cake was wheeled away. No one was served a slice.” She said instead of cake or cupcakes, each guest was given a single chocolate ice pop. The guest and her parents left the ceremony still hungry. As she said, “We ended up getting food in the city afterwards because we were still starving by the end of the night.” She added at the end of her post, “My parents have also been to a wedding that was catered by Boston Market, but hey, at least there was plenty of food for everyone.”
Many people in the comments agreed this wasn’t how you treat wedding guests. One commenter said, “We have more food at our kid’s bday parties. I’d rather go without decorations than skimp on food. And if you can’t afford that, just skip the big wedding and celebrate some other way.” Another suggested, “If you can’t feed 100 guests, invite 50 and feed them well.”
Commenters also replied with humor over the situation. One said, “You could kill a king and I’d hear you out. But if guests go hungry, straight to banishment.” Personally, I’d feel a sense of horror if I knew guests were leaving my wedding feeling ‘starved.’ Good budgeting for a wedding definitely includes food for everyone and, if I wasn’t able to plan sufficiently on a budget, the wedding would have to be smaller.
