This is the second and last part of the "I GOT MARRIED" posts, but the food-stuff merited it's own thing... So here ya go.
Due to concerns about allergies, we were pretty unwavering
on wanting to know exactly what ingredients would be used in the foods. We asked to meet with the chef, which is a
generally normal wedding thing anyway…
We were told “Oh, there’s no reason to be concerned!”
So we reiterated that despite that, we would feel a lot better speaking directly to the chef.
So we reiterated that despite that, we would feel a lot better speaking directly to the chef.
The response was, “Do you want to call other people with
different allergies who ate here?”
No, we don’t. We want
to talk to the chef about the ingredients and OUR list of allergens. Like, great that you didn’t kill a completely
different person in a totally different scenario?
This went on for months.
This went on for months.
Finally, we got a, “I gave your list to the chef, and there
are some problems. Can we do a meeting?”
The. Fuck.
Did I mention we didn’t like our wedding planner lady?
Have I mentioned (a thousand times) that I’m recovering from
a food phobia and I am pretty damn delicate about not wanting to be poisoned
from my many REAL allergies?
Just picking the menu was a bigger hassle than it should
have been. She told us to circle
everything we could possibly want on the menu, to then edit down later.
So we did that.
She panicked and said, “You chose a lot of stuff guys…” Right.
Like you said. We were not
intending to actually eat all that. (Also,
take the fucking chocolate fountain off of the list for the tenth time, you
lunatic.)
The first chef wasn’t a bad guy, and I’d like to say he made
great food, but I’ll never know.
He insisted he would only make a special plate, instead of
altering his recipes for the people paying him to cook. “So yours will be terrible and
tasteless”
…Right.
That tasting was a lot of everyone around me explaining how
I can’t eat ANYTHING and must be SO MISERABLE ALL THE TIME. Mind you, I did this to myself in one
regard.
When I listed off my food allergies, I included things that will straight up kill me if ingested, right along with stuff I’m just
intolerant to, like things that make me a little physically uncomfortable,
thinking that I’d rather not run to the bathroom at my own wedding.
I included soy on this list though it probably shouldn't have been there. I used to have a
HUGE PROBLEM with soy way back in the day. Not a hive-gonna-die reaction, but a running-to-the-bathroom-and-praying reaction. Now, I can generally
eat things that contain soy. I really
can. REALLY, I can.
I’m still not going
to eat a brick of tofu any time soon, but if something is made with soybean
oil, I’m totally fine.
But, yeah.
I didn’t correct anyone when this was treated
like my actually dangerous allergies, because it was a matter of principle and
trust.
If I now let this go, what else
would they think was okay?
See, again, we weren’t originally even going to get a
tasting of any kind, because we didn’t count as important.
This woman even said OUT LOUD, “We aren’t
making the margins that we typically do.”
Like… did she… Did she think we don’t know what that means?
What?
So that first chef, what we have is a super-hip know-it-all
who apparently isn’t actually that talented if he CAN make separate food just
for me special, but can’t figure out how to make it delicious, so I’ll get a
special plate.
I didn’t want a special plate. I wanted to feel normal. For one damn day of my life. I wanted hope that I might have that feeling
more than once.
I had been dealing with this food phobia for over three
years.
I just wanted to feel like a normal person during my own
goddamn wedding. I just wanted to feel
safe AND be able to eat what everyone else was eating without fear. We didn’t understand why we couldn’t just
have what he put in front of me for everyone else.
We were eventually asked to do a 2nd meeting with
no further explanation where we were introduced to the NEW chef who had no problem
making the entire menu without using anything off the allergen list.
And the desserts! Trying
to find a nut-free cake was a giant pain in the ass. Every place we found that said “nut free” was
also everything-else free, and so would wind up using other things that make me
sick, if not could kill me.
Totally
unhelpful.
A lot of those places also
seemed to be doing that out of a fad-thing rather than with allergies actually
in mind.
Finally, I found a freaking “Living With Allergies” help
board online, which led to finding a woman in the area who works right out of
her kitchen.
She was able to provide us
with a nut-free cake (bottom layer was chocolate with strawberry filling, the
middle was a yellow cake with Oreo filling, and the top was chocolate with a
mixture of the two fillings).
Of course, we were meant to pick up and drive this cake to
the wedding, so admittedly that was harrowing.
It was a lot of screaming and “WHY IS THE ROAD BUMPY??” but the cake was
perfectly fine.
Given that this cake was a post-apocalyptic cake… with
flowers? We were a little confused when
we first picked it up.
But I love the
topsy turvy shape, and that’s all that really mattered to me in the end.
This same woman was able to make vegan cupcakes, gluten free
cupcakes, AND sugar free cookies for all our guest’s dietary needs.
We had the place make special labels for each item, both
here and for the buffet.
They stated
what the item is and what ingredients were used. Super useful right?
Except for that one where they totally failed.
Not entirely getting the point led to our planner-lady
interrupting me while I was getting food to say, “OH you don’t want that!”
At first I was like, “Is this bitch calling
me fat on my goddamn wedding day???”
Turn out, there was a last minute change to the menu, and one item had…
something?
Dude, if you can’t do what I asked you to do, just cut it
out. DO NOT endanger people by having
the once useful sign now functionally worthless.
Given my food-phobias that I was really super determined not
to freak out about that particular day *BREATHES* I was furious, and
scared. I managed to still eat macaroni,
but I didn’t actually eat anything else.
Anything. Because she ruined
it. She burned my hard earned trust
away. It was gone.
…
Okay, “ruined” might take it a bit far. The party was still awesome and continues to
be talked about as, “The Best Wedding Ever” so suck it!
We even got to dress the bartenders up as mad scientists! Did I mention that?
We even got to dress the bartenders up as mad scientists! Did I mention that?
Every wedding has those oh-my-god-no moments, and ours went
pretty well by the end.
Sooo I would still recommend the venue, warts and all.
