I recently attended the wedding of two young love birds at Murray Hill in Leesburg, Virginia. The groom is a handsome guy and the bride is an equally ravishing Caucasian lady. They met in college and cultural and racial differences notwithstanding, became inseparable. It would have been a lovely bi-cultural occasion between these love birds who are from two totally different cultures, if some thought had been given to the differences in their friend's and family's preferences. However, that wasn't the case.
The white wedding ceremony which was held in a beautiful garden, totally ignored the groom's Indian culture and heritage. I believe it would have been nicer if some aspects of his culture had been incorporated. However, after the ceremony, the event continued, and at the reception was where a major problem began. The groom's Indian friends and family are mostly vegetarian, but no provision was made to accommodate their vegetarian food preferences.
As a matter of fact, the food served was predominantly meat based. As the hors d’oeuvre were passed around during the cocktail hour, the groom's Indian friends and family constantly asked if there was meat in it, which soon began irking the servers who sometimes didn't know the answer.
This problem continued and became even worse during the dinner, where it became even more apparent that the groom's friends and family’s Indian heritage and vegetarian preference had been totally ignored because there was no Indian or vegetarian food on the menu. To say the groom and his family were disappointed, insulted and embarrassed would be a gross understatement. Many of them only had drinks and desert consisting of the Indian cakes and pastries provided by the groom's family and wedding cake, just to be sure they didn't ingest any meat.
Knowing the bride's family paid for the wedding, it's clear that it was a case of, "He who pays the piper, dictates the tune, as the African American caterer who was summoned several times by the groom and his family said many times that she hadn't been advised to cater to any vegetarian needs. This was clearly something the caterer should have been advised of ahead of time, so she could plan for it. Since she hadn’t planned for it, the best she could do was advise them to eat only the part of the meal that didn't have meat in it as their full meal.
Where were the bride and her family's international relations skills and graciousness? Is it possible that the they were totally ignorant of the groom’s friend's and family's vegetarian needs? Was the groom so in love, leaving all the planning to the bride and her parents, specifically her mother, without ensuring that his friend’s and family's needs would be met?
Or was this a subtle way for the bride and her family to show who was in charge of the wedding day and who would subsequently have more influence over the couple? I guess we will never know the answer to those questions. However, regardless of if it was an oversight or premeditated, the bride and her family were not in the good books of the groom's vegetarian friends and family.
There's a Yoruba proverb that states, A wife shouldn't cook a meal her husband doesn't eat because it causes disunity. This is a proverb the bride would be wise to embrace when interacting with her husband's friends and family in the future. She would be wise to pass the buck about the wedding fiasco to her mother by apologizing to them and saying the food choices were her mother’s decision to wipe the slate clean, if she desires to receive their full acceptance, which will go a long way in ensuring that she enjoys marital bliss.
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