Reader S. wrote in with a complaint about the food at the country club where she held her wedding. It would be easy to write her off as a hysterical Bridezilla, but the problem goes deeper than just “crappy food.” Both S. and her husband told the venue during the ten-month planning process that his husband’s family are Muslims who don’t eat pork. The caterers served up rice with pork sausage, potatoes with ham, salad with bacon, and ham sandwiches for the cocktail hour. When called on their error, their response was to take some of the offending dishes away and not replace them. Management has offered S. a $3,000 refund on her $17,000 tab for the event. Is that enough compensation for a mishap that makes S. look this bad to her new in-laws?
We just held our wedding here two weeks ago. While all the hype about the beauty of this place is true and warranted, the service was the worst I have ever experienced in my life. Not only were we shuffled around to three different coordinators throughout the 10 months we were dealing with them leading up to our big day, they often took anywhere from a week to 6 weeks to respond to simple emails.
But all of that is nothing compared to the worst most horrific aspect of [redacted]‘s service that utterly ruined not only our wedding, but my relationship with my new husband’s entire family: we had both said that there could be NO PORK at the buffet as my husband’s family’s religion is opposed to that (they are Muslim).
Not only was there pork in the buffet, but when we saw the bacon on the salad and the pork sausage in the rice, and called the coordinator over to deal with the issue, she actually disputed against our word, saying she didn’t recall hearing us say “no pork.” It was only after my husband told her to go check her notes, that upon her return from her office she admitted she “just didn’t double check,” and apologized for having served pork to all of our guests.
We tried our best to brush off the issue, insisting that all pork dishes be removed, and attempted to enjoy our once-in-a-lifetime big day, but we were met again the next morning with the nightmare of what this place’s oversight has really caused. Family called and emailed all day, furious and upset that they were served a food against their religion. We were horrified to also learn that not all pork dishes were removed even after we confronted the coordinator – a potato dish with pork was left out for the entire dinner service. The coordinator didn’t even care to double check what exactly should have been removed once she received our initial complaint!
Furthermore, we also found out the next day that the sandwiches we ordered for the cocktail hour that had immediately followed after our ceremony included ham sandwiches, which were also eaten by our guests. From the buffet, only one dish was remade without pork (the spinach salad); the rice, something essential to any Indian function, was not replaced and left our guests without the most basic of all foods in their eyes; the deli platter was also removed without being replaced; and as I have already mentioned, the potatoes that contained pork weren’t even removed.
The only reparation offered to us upon confronting [redacted] at a meeting we had with their General Manager, [redacted], last week was $3000 (our total venue bill was over $17,000, with just the food cost even before the tax and 15% gratuity coming to nearly $10,000). This seemed like a slap in the face, especially since he qualified his offer and apology with attempting to claim that the coordinator, [redacted], reneged on her initial apology and now claims again that she never had any notes of “no pork.” Since their story keeps changing, and all staff we talk to seems unsympathetic and unwilling to refund us for a wedding day that was less than memorable, we have filed with the Better Business Bureau (although we are told this often results in nothing happening), have emailed several news channels, and have also lawyered-up. But it’s not enough.
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The only thing that is likely to be effective is telling people what company it was.
Which…. you didn’t do.
I’ve catered my friend’s wedding. 180 people, 14 different food allergies/preferences including pork, beef, wheat, nuts, and vegetarian.
I’m not a professional by any stretch. I’m a food nerd who spends his free time in the kitchen.
If I can manage with no professional training and 1 assisstant, I see no reason why a professional catering service can’t do the same.
I also had 6 months to prepare the menu. We went through multiple revisions as people’s allergies became known. The facility also had a professional kitchen we used.
The menu ended up being:
Smoked beef
Smoked chicken(both of these were handled by a buddy who is a professional smoker)
Salad bar
Baked potatoes
Baked beans w/o meat
Coleslaw – 2 types
Rolls – Regular and gluten-free
Iced tea
Sweet tea
While this was in no way a fancy meal per se, it did go off quite well and no one got either sick or had allergic reactions. Since we knew going in, we included little names underneath in front of each serving tray to let the folks there know what contained what allergen. It just made life easier for everyone.
Damn…you owe me a new slobber-free shirt, now.
Your screenname is full of goodness.
At my wedding we had a tasting beforehand and new/selected what would be served?How was this not done?
Believe it or not, not everyone plans a wedding the same way. Just because you personally did what you did does not mean it’s the standard. If you can’t think of any possible reason why a couple might not want to decide on every aspect of a meal, I’d advise you to try harder.
Was it in the contract to have no pork or get all your money back?
ham, pork, bacon? Sounds like they got the catering mixed up with Homer Simpson’s wedding…
How dare Muslims try to impose sharia law at their wedding so close to ground zero (anything within 3000 miles counts)! The people who prepared the food are true americans, oppressed by muslim extremists who just want to be “catered” to. If we “cater” to every muslim who wants his food this way or that, the terrorists have won. God bless those food-making-and-selling folks, whatever you call them.
Boo hoo. If your extreme, archaic religious views prevent you from coming in contact with extremely common things, then expect to have *a lot* of problems in life. If they’re so averse to pork, why did they EAT THE HAM SANDWICHES? And if her in-laws would really consider the OP a bad daughter in law because of a mistake on the caterer’s part, then I’d seriously rethink spending my life with such a hard, unforgiving family if I were her.
I dunno, this whole thing seems fishy to me. Diehard pork-hating religious freaks wouldn’t eat pork, and they’d KNOW if they were eating it.
Maybe because they didn’t know they were ham? If they truly had never eaten pork before, they wouldn’t know the meat was ham. It could have looked like beef or turkey or something. So many idiots in this thread are bringing up the same thing, but forget that, as evidenced by how mad they were that they were served pork, they’ve obviously never had ham before and couldn’t differentiate it from another meat.
Also, I don’t know where you’re getting the “bad daughter-in-law” part because no where does it say they were mad at her. It says they were mad that they were served pork. Maybe they called her to tell her how mad they were at the venue for doing what they did. But of course, this is an article about religion (and Muslims in particular) so irrational and unfounded hatred abounds.
Taken directly from the article:
“But all of that is nothing compared to the worst most horrific aspect of [redacted]‘s service that utterly ruined not only our wedding, but my relationship with my new husband’s entire family”
“Family called and emailed all day, furious and upset that they were served a food against their religion”
They’re assholes, and they’re blaming HER.
Actually Muslims are ‘allowed’ to eat pork if there is no other food and they are in a starvation, survival, situation, or if the only other option is to offend a kind host then there is no grievous violation to eat a token amount of pork. Just because some people project extremist views, doesn’t mean that actual religious texts aren’t far more moderate. The family could have eaten a bit to be polite and understanding, or they could have simply understood that because of a terrible caterer, not because of the bride, they weren’t going to eat.
Tolerance is clearly stated with regard to many Muslim ‘rules’ but tolerance isn’t a quality that every Muslim has – just like it isn’t a quality held by every person of any religion.
Or, if it were my family, both pork-eaters and non-pork eaters would have raised up in righteous fury and the caterer would have had to run out and buy suitable food, and/or deal out the refund agreement right there – ’cause that’s how we roll.
The Quran actually has a section focused on a woman disputing (Prophet) Muhammad’s initial viewpoint on a situation presented to him with regard to her and her husband. Not only does he change his view admitting he was wrong and accepting that the woman is right and has corrected him, but it is an actual lesson on that the fact that a woman has the God-given right to disagree with her husband and the Muhammad, to freely speak her side, and to be accepted as right when she is indeed right. This is a direct religious admonishment to cultures that had cultural views that demeaned a woman’s right to disagree, be heard and be right, and if folk claimed to be Muslim they were supposed to follow the Quran, and not their cultural issue – but yeah, see how that works. “She Who Disputes (Argues/Pleads)” isn’t an opinion, that actually is the title/name of the section in the Quran, so some may choose to ignore it, but they can’t deny it is as much official text and rule as anything else in Islam.
Now compare that to what some Muslim communities and organizations claim to be acceptable with regard to women in Islam.
For that matter, compare it to what the bible says about women being obedient and submissive – and to what some Christian communities and organizations say are “Christian tenets.”
As to archaic rules/views, almost every one lives by at least one ‘rule’ whether it is familial, cultural, religious, community-promoted, or just something they made up themselves, that causes a problem or requires some additional ‘management issue’ with very common-things they come in contact with in daily life. Sometime it is just a belief or preference, and without harm to themselves or others, why shouldn’t they be free to maintain it? Everyone has a food they don’t like the taste of, or just don’t even want to try to eat for whatever the reason, that’s their rule and they manage with it. Just because for someone the reason may be religion, doesn’t make it wrong.
Far worse is when someone has a rule, of any kind, that hurts other people. For example, a racial and/or religious bigot who turns every mention and interaction with someone of a different race or religion into an opportunity to vent their totally ignorant mentality – and make a point of insulting, hurting others just because they don’t like their race and/or religion. Doesn’t matter the source of their belief, it is just wrong.
That said, I tolerated my college roommates love of mayonnaise and cheese sandwiches (heated in the oven) despite my complete disgust. I even still have her as a good friend, but there is no mayonnaise and cheese sandwich making in my home, and it isn’t ever going to be on the menu when she visits. I leave the kitchen, she makes it if she wants, and she accepts that I don’t ever want to see or smell it. At her house, I am the one that makes the most effort to stay out of the way of that food-perversion. If it is served at her wedding, and there is nothing else, I am going to drink a lot and/or possibly make a quick food run.
I disagree with the OP, this wedding sounds very memorable, just not for the right reasons.
IMHO it sounds like the wedding coordinator or someone was being very discriminate toward her husband’s family’s religion and should be sued for discrimination.
When we got married, not only did we have an introductory tasting where we got to taste a wide selection of what foods were available, we got to have a final tasting where we were seved eveyrthing that was to be served at our wedding. We actually sat down with the chef at both tastings and got to discuss everything from where they get their meat, what was in the dishes, to presentation.
This was in nowhere Illinois, and my reception for 120 people cost well under $7K. For what the OP paid, they should have been extended the same courtesies and known exactly what was going to be served at their party.
Shame on the OP for not going over the menu and getting confirmation from the reception venue. There’s a far cry from saying “No Pork” to not knowing exactly what’s going to be served at your wedding.
However, being that they are offering any type of refund is admitting some kind of responsibility. They wouldn’t be doing this if they didn’t at least have some kind of documentation (even a handwriteen scribble) that specified a sans-swine service.
Being that weddings are supposed to be a once in a lifetime event and this one was pretty much ruined, I’d be shooting for a larger refund.
Overall, the real ‘tell’ is that they were shuffled around to different coordinators and didn’t get proper response to their emails, etc. even before the actual event. That shows they were being insulted from the start and they should have dropped the country club and found a location that treated them correctly. But they stayed on to accept it at all, even though spending that amount of money for an event as important as a wedding, and that’s why the General Manager is disregarded their complaints now.
What they got is way too much pork, when a client has specified no pork, for it to be an accident. Unless you’ve ask for the “Pork Feast” who has that much pork at an event? The couple should have written contracts specifying advance meal preferences, but I can see how if they allowed all that poor treatment early on that they may also have not handle the written documentation properly. If they do have the documentation, that is enough for a hard legal smack down of the refusal to properly compensate them. Not just the amount spent on food should be refunded, but really the caterer caused damage to the quality of the wedding with their unwanted pork festival, and it really is hard to believe it was just an honest accident. At best it was just truly crappy management. You can bet they wouldn’t have accidentally served Kobe beef and caviar if the couple only ordered and paid for chicken.
My biological family is mixed, Muslim and Christian, so among us the no pork eating vs. port eating is an already managed, friendly situation, but I do understand how when you marry into that situation there’d be the anger – because one or both sides are wondering who is going to change who, who is going to accomodate and when, and they still aren’t sure over the issues of mutual understanding and respect. Her in-laws likely already had their ‘worries’ and the wedding meal seemed to be too much an avoidable situation for them to fully believe it wasn’t the new bride’s deliberate disregard or just ignorant neglect. They seem to have taken the situation as ‘proof’ that they were going to be the second-class side of the family for this couple. It seems like the bride just got her first experience of bigotry as part of a Muslim family, and terrible that it was at her wedding.
Dealing with my insurance company and medical billers all year (more than $40k in ‘errors’ rectified), has just enhanced my natural “Kill Bill” tendencies, and sometimes you just need to approach such situations by letting folk know that B.S. is not an option for them to use.
It seems like the bride just got her first experience of bigotry as part of a Muslim family, and terrible that it was at her wedding.
You make it sound as if bigotry in a Muslim family is expected. Pot, meet kettle.
It’s people like you that enable the continued pulling of the race/ethnicity/religion card whenever non-whites act like total assholes. Can’t criticize their shitty behavior or else you’re a bigot!
I was not the one who basically said that bigotry is expected from all Muslims.
Most major religions specifically state whether interfaith marriages are allowed or not… So bigotry is ingrained in the religion itself. If she isn’t a “Person of the Book”, it’s even worse.
Actually that is absolutely NOT what I am saying. When I wrote this:
“It seems like the bride just got her first experience of bigotry as part of a Muslim family, and terrible that it was at her wedding.”
What I meant was that perhaps before she hadn’t experienced such bigotry, but now that she was part of a Muslim family, she was for the first time experiencing some bigotry that Muslims often encounter.
As a person who is part of a Muslim and Christian “mixed” family, I actually haven’t experienced, or seen anyone experience, bigotry from either side to either side. As to that pot meet kettle comment, you might want to examine its origins in how it makes ‘black’ a flaw, an insult. See, the point of the comment is that someone/thing is commenting on the flaw another has, while they actually have that flaw themselves. It is a comment that most people (like you) probably don’t examine before using it over and over again, because you are just repeating what you’ve learned to say.
So note, I knew what I was saying – you just misinterpreted it, and when responding to chastise me, used a phrase that you probably haven’t really examined for its offensive origin.
My family is familiar with being on the receiving end of both racial and religious bigotry, and at no point would we excuse such treatment of others, even if it was done by a member of our own family.
What a horrible group of people to bitch to the bride after what should have been the happiest day of her life, and all over what amounted to nothing more than going hungrry for a few hours. You don’t think she feels bad enough already? Neither eating a little pork accidently nor getting something else to eat on the way home will kill you.
EXACTLY.
I LOL’ed at the absurdity that a “no pork” request would result in pork products in EVERY course. What was the cocktail, bacon martinis?
Yes, $3K refund is NOT enough compensation for such an egregious error.
I hate that Consumerist often redacts business names (I understand why they do it, but I hate it none the less) public shaming/negative publicity goes a long way as the internet has taught us. It also affords the opportunity of possibly letting other people who have had issues with the same venue know that their bad experience was not in fact an isolated incident, but a repeated pattern of poor customer service. Lawyer up, decide how much you want (keeping in mind that the venue did have expenses/overhead, and contact as much press as you possibly can. Also, unfortunately, keep in mind that we live in interesting times, and not everyone will be as incensed when they hear the “M” word.
This sound a lot like racist rednecks caterers taking out their anti Muslim frustrations on a wedding.
The catering company should be required to fully refund the contract.
Since the written contract was violated I suggest dragging the caterer fully through the judicial court system to recoup every cent (and legal costs) while ensuring they are abused in the court of public opinion.
I am very confused on this – who doesn’t know what they are serving at their own wedding – don’t you set it up with the caterer so you are getting specific items? Who says “no pork” but doesn’t get the exact menu for the evening? Am I missing something – seriously I am just lost. I feel bad but who gets married and plans a wedding not knowing everything on the menu – I have never heard of such a thing before.
It is possible to have a wedding menu and not do a tasting, FWIW. When I got married, a friend of the family who owns a restaurant catered the wedding. He has a great palate, and knew better than I did what could be gotten at a reasonable price from his suppliers that would fit our budget. He was a guest, so I knew he’d make sure delicious things were served. He even just charged me his cost so I could have things like prime rib and bacon-wrapped scallops. But damn straight I wouldn’t be shelling out $10k on food I hadn’t previewed if I didn’t know the caterers. Regardless, I think the caterers should make it right.
I’m confused? Were they not allowed to pick out their own menu? when we went to wedding venues, they had very specific choices with the ingredients listed. For them to just put pork in everything without those items being chosen for the menu seems really weird to me.
You’d be surprised at what talking to the BBB does. I once got a McDonald’s franchise to start accepting credit and debit cards just by complaining.
It’s Bush’s fault.
There’s an old saying. Once is happenstance. Twice in coincidence. Three times is enemy action.
Given all of the indignities that the OP suffered at the hand of the country club stuff, from being shunted from coordinator to coordinator to almost every dish from appetizers to salad to rice having some kind of pork to a total failure to rectify the situation once it was brought to their attention, it’s hard not to conclude that her and her family were the victims of anti-Muslim bigotry.
The thing to do now is to go back and have another meeting with the manager and demand a full refund of all fees paid plus an additional amount for your trouble and inconvenience as well as a written apology. Explain that you’re not only going to file a lawsuit against them for religious discrimination, you’re going to go the the press and tell everyone who listens exactly what happened.
No way is that enough. I got that much for the venue screwing up less. I married a Finnish girl and asked for the venue to bring in a specific number of bottles of Koskenkorva that I would pay for. They not only didn’t get them, but then tried to weasel out of it. No warning. Fortunately our relatives had brought some we had the next day.
Of course the venue wasn’t too happy with the plate on the bride’s head tradition, even though my in-laws swooped in to clean it up (after counting the pieces), and no it wasn’t their plate.
Seriously, tell them your family is Jewish, not Muslim. I hate to say it, but there is a massive anti-Muslim streak going around now. The result is that there is no respect, but instead outright intolerance and maliciousness. While, in contrast, if you had said, “My family is Jewish, the food needs to be kosher, there can be no pork at all.” You would have got it.
And, I normally hate to say “SUE!” But, this is one of those situations were you likely have a handful of major torts and contract violations to boot. Thus, you may want to at least talk to a lawyer before agreeing to anything. If nothing else, a lawyer may be able to spell it out for them and get you a much more adequate and fair form of compensation.
You’re never gonna look good to your inlaws, so don’t bother.
Makes me wonder if the same thing would have happened if the new in-laws were Orthodox Jews (no pork) instead of muslims.
That much pork isn’t just “oops, sorry, our mistake.” That’s “haha, they’re muslins you say? I’ll show those ragheads! It’s just like kryptonite for terrists!”
Show your logic and reasoning.
Never understood the whole not eating pork custom. Pigs farmed today are not allowed to be the omnivorous scavengers they were 2000 years ago spreading parasites. The point is that pork is no longer “unclean”. It’s no more dangerous than eating other types of meats. Get over it guys.
Religion is a worldwide thing, it doesn’t only exist in the perfect little pork bubble of the USA.
She should sue the bacongrease out of those catering swine.
Getting food restrictions right is one of the basic jobs of a caterer, so I have to wonder if this was intentional. It’s a safe bet they’d've gotten a food allergy right (or refused the contract), knowing the legal & publicity consequences, so showing them there are similar consequences here seems pretty reasonable.
Bacon in almost everything?
Boy I sure hope they didn’t do that on purpose.
If this had been thirty years ago and catholics were served beef on a Friday after ordering fish, people would have been up in arms and tried to close down the company.
You needed a fourth option: $3000 was insufficient compensation. You don’t have to be muslim or a hypersensitive PC type to think it was inappropriate.
.
The menu should have been in writing and an actual contract for that amount of money and esp if this is a RELIGIOUS deal. For the caterer to not eat more than 3K of the price of your once in a lifetime meal is in severely bad taste.
On a personal note, I find spending 17K for food ridiculous. Esp in light of the fact that most brides want their day to be ‘perfect.’ This is a large and costly mistake which will take a long time to resolve and the bride/groom/family probably will never be totally satisfied with the outcome because it ruined such an important day.
Hope others can learn from this.
Not so long ago, weren’t American country clubs notorious for excluding people of the “wrong” religion or race?
Perhaps I’m reading too much into this but it sounds like the caterer went out of their way to make everything full of ham and pork. Most caterers would not consider that a really balanced menu with everything so heavy on one variety of meat, or at least I’d think most caterers would take a more balanced approach. This stinks to me like someone in the catering company decided to accidentally on purpose reverse that ‘no pork’ order into ‘all pork’ because they knew them durn mooslims would be at the event. If I were the OP I’d demand a full refund – or start saying that the catering company is racist.
Since the coordinators were directly employed by that a specific venue, they had the detail in their notes of what not to serve, they did not follow their own notes, and since attention to detail is part of their job description, they did not do their job properly, I think that the venue should eat the cost of that event as compensation.
It would be one thing if it was just an, “Ooops, we didn’t read our notes,” but the bride and groom tried to be reasonable and find a middle ground of just removing those pork dishes to save face at the event and the coordinator couldn’t even get that right. That is over the top incompetence.
Reading this post reminds me why I don’t bother throwing big parties anymore. Catering to everyone’s religious, vegan, gluten, and other issues is just too exhausting! LOL
It seems to be one of two things happened here- 1. the planner misunderstood and thought they wanted everything pork 2. the planner doesn’t like muslims and it was purposeful (because they must be terrorists).
The first seems so highly unlikely, but so does two. That said, it’s hard to tell which is worse.
I absolutely think they should get 100% of their money back and a written apology, for starters.
I’m not a religious person by any means, but I do have some respect for the dietary laws of others. I grew up in a Seventh Day Adventist household, so I didn’t grow up eating pork and things. For anyone who says “A little bit of pork won’t kill them,” that is true, but for someone whose digestive tract is not used to pork, it CAN make them sick. It’s not generally dangerous, but it’s certainly just as unpleasant as a non life-threatening allergy.
Funny thing, I remember when Osama was killed, the administration and others in DC were SOOOO afraid of releasing pictures of his body. They said the Muslim community would get offended and it would create a new wave of terrorism.
Then Qaddafi was killed by the rebels in Libya. Immediately after he was killed, images were everywhere of the actual capture and his body after his execution. I think there’s video on Youtube. Willingly provided by Muslim militant cameramen, not Western ones.
Something tells me these people are hypocrites. They ate pork? Who cares, deal with it. Worst things could happen.
To those comparing food prices, in fairness, we have no idea how many people were at the wedding, nor where it was. Some places charge per plate, and include the venue, music, cake, coordinator, and all. Some people have weddings with 500 guests. I can all too easily imagine where these numbers come from, despite spending less than 10K myself.
I think $3K is not nearly enough. I also think they should have recognized far earlier that they were having problems, and switched venues. We had to do this with two months to go- just after the invitations went out for much the same sort of reason. Our wedding coordinator changed three times in four months, and there’d be weeks between emails while they found someone new. After the third one, we told them we had no more faith that there would be a coordinator, food, chairs, etc., on our big day, and we would like a full refund, thank you. They agreed and gave it to us. If it were me dealing with this, I would demand a full refund on the food, and settle for nothing less. If their apology was nice, sincere, and fully acknowledged their mistake, then and only then, I’d agree not to spread my horror story as far and wide as possible.
While the EXACT food being prepared should have been discussed in advance, the message here clearly seems to be “Muslims aren’t welcome”. I would sue for the entire cost of the food plus damages.
17K for food?
Wholesale thats well over a years worth of relatively high end food
They would have been better off ordering finding a hood halal food stand nearby and contacting them in advanced to see if they can make some food at the event, This will knock the cost for food down to around $5 per person + the cost of drinks.
Hi everyone,
I am the bride in question, and I’d like to clear a few things up:
- I would love to say the name of the venue, as I had initially done in the email I sent to The Consumerist, however, it seems they have taken it out, and I’m not sure if giving the name out now will result in something like the removal of this article, or what have you. If a mod could give me approval, I will give the name of the venue.
- We live in Vancouver, BC, Canada. This was not a function held anywhere in the states, and with a rather large Muslim population in the surrounding areas here, I personally doubt the request of “no pork” was a novel concept to the venue (and of course, this isn’t even taking into account all other groups that would also request “no pork,” or any other special food request that I’m sure happens often).
- The venue specified in their contract that only plated meals are given a tasting in advance, they strictly do not offer tastings for buffets. This actually seems to be standard practice here, as most venues we researched also said something similar. Furthermore, the sandwiches listed in the menu are stated only as being “assorted varieties.” When saying to the coordinator that we require “no pork” in any dish, this should not have been a difficult task to execute properly. We did not assume not having a tasting would be an issue for several reasons: the coordinator assured us our requests would be no issue to fulfill (a coordinator who was assigned to deal with every issue directly on our behalf and was responsible for the execution of food and beverage as per the contract); we were guests to another wedding at the same venue last year and tasted their buffet food and it was fine; this venue has won awards for being the best wedding venue in the lower mainland in recent years.
- Not that it’s relevant, but just because several people have asked it: neither my husband or I are Muslim. We merely chose to omit pork as a matter of keeping the food accessible for everyone. It was out of respect for the guests at our wedding who don’t eat it, especially since they made up over 60% of our guest list (more than 120 people at our wedding were Muslim). We were only trying to be considerate.
Ignore the haters and the venom here, but there is some excellent advice.
Much upthread (around the 100 mark, I think), someone suggested that you contact the venue, and tell them the opportunity here:
You can tell people they made a huge mistake, and owned up to it …
Or you can tell people they made a huge mistake and did not own up.
Assure them that you will be sharing this widely on websites for brides, grooms, and especially affinity websites for Muslims, Jews, and vegetarians. Contact the media too (well, maybe not the Sun).
I would seriously consider filing the equivalent of a small claims suit if they don’t respond to your concerns. Personally, if this happened to me, I would assume that it was deliberate rather than an oversight (which I might do if it happened in the American South; I don’t eat meat and find that people are pretty dumb about it even after I mention it, i.e. serving me something with bacon bits, made with broth, etc.)
I honestly think the catering crew did it deliberately.
To anyone else, Vancouver is a cosmopolitan place with many vegetarians and Muslims, and has a large pan-Asian/pan-Pacific population beyond that. It is tremendously easy to get healthy food from different cultures there. A caterer should have had no issues making a non-pork menu.
My sympathies on the tough path ahead with your in-laws.
With the amount of dishes and ways that they used pork, someone in this catering company did this on purpose. Deliberately serving food that was mentioned as against one’s religion should void the entire bill instead of just the one course.
Another thing, for ethnic people to hold their wedding at a country club displays unwise judgment. Country clubs are notorious “good ole boy” hangouts. The caterers and managers of that club won’t care if they offend some Muslims or Indian people. They have an established base of very rich people and probably found something like this very humorous. Go to a professional banquet hall or event center, they’ll be glad to have your business!
This would make some sense if it was in a country other than the US. Half the people I meed in the US have special dietary needs (vegeterians, halal, kosher etc), and everywhere they go they are accommodated pretty well, because, you know, that is expected…
Apart from that, how can you arrange a wedding reception without having approved and, more importantly, tasted the entire menu??? I am talking from experience, having had my wedding a month ago – everything was hand-picked and taste-approved by myself and the bride.
Restaurants and caterers not capable of meeting certain dietary requirements should not offer to accommodate them. I think that’s a plain and simple solution. The problem is that too often, they say “Yes” to get the gig and then fail to follow through.
Furthermore, I’m astonished, from stories such as this and from personal experience, how many people in the food service industry, even in diverse areas, remain ignorant about what it means to be halal, kosher, vegetarian, vegan, celiac/gluten intolerant., etc. Again, if they don’t actually know what those things mean, they should simply not claim to be able to accommodate them. But they still do.
I’m celiac, my girlfriend is vegan. Even in the Boston area, we have issues. It’s almost funny. Out come the vegan pancakes from some earthy-crunchy joint and on the plate is real butter, and the waitress is clueless. I know it’s not a high paying job.. just asking for a little common sense.
Or, when you ask if something is vegetarian and it is not – I used to be sympathetic with restaurants and caterers on that. I no longer am. Vegetarian means no meat based broth, no bacon in the salad, etc.
It’s a tough job to be a food server and I wouldn’t want to be in their position, but knowing what they hell you’re serving ought to be a requirement. What if it was a life or death allergy?
1) Probably racism on the country club’s part.
2) If your in-laws can’t accept that and be mad at the caterers and not you, that’s not a good sign. I’d steer clear of those people.
3) If you had paid half that you could have had it catered by an indian food restaurant and you would have had wonderful food.
It’s one thing to slip up and have 1 or 2 items with pork products in them, but from reading the letter, I got the impression that this place really went out of their way to turn the buffet into a giant middle finger salute aimed at Muslims.
Salad with bacon – sure. But potato salad with pork? I know German potato salad is made with bacon and bacon fat, but I don’t think that’s what this was. Then rice…with pork sausage? That seems a bit odd (or was a Jambalaya with shellfish as well?) Finally, ham sandwiches? At a wedding?
Did they frost the wedding cake with lard too?
Seriously, it sounds like this place has a huge vendetta against Muslims.