Even the simplest weddings can turn into expensive affairs, depending on the venue, the dress, the flowers, the entertainment, and so on. Some people can’t afford to go all out, especially when there are other things the money could be put toward (a house payment, a honeymoon, a kid, etc.).
Attending a wedding is a chance to witness two people who are in love vowing to stay together forever (or at least until they divorce) and it should be considered an honor to be invited to share in the special day.
Which is why it’s kind of a bummer that, according to Wired, Facebook wedding shaming groups are getting hugely popular. Those are groups where people go to post pictures of weddings they’ve attended and everyone gets together to mock whatever aspect has been photographed. They’re private, like this one called “That’s It, I’m Wedding Shaming,” but they have thousands of members, so it’s probably still pretty embarrassing to end up in one.
Wedding Wire reports that in the U.S., the majority of people planning weddings spend somewhere between $1,800 and $7,000 for the food; the average is $4,000. Well, the couple that threw this wedding probably didn’t spend nearly that much. The person who posted the pics took issue with the food spread—or lack thereof.
The pictures, posted in a wedding shaming group on Facebook (by someone thought to be from the U.S., per Metro and Daily Mail), show hundreds of pieces of what looks like pre-sliced American cheese, all taken out of the plastic. There are also some oddly cut oranges and some trays of brownies.
All in all, definitely not a feast, but since the spread also included raw veggies and melons, according to Facebook, not the worst food ever. Definitely edible.
Although it’s maybe a little weird that the couple (or whoever prepared the food) took the time to unwrap the cheese from the plastic, but not to take the stickers off the oranges.
And people were smug in the comments, as we all know they can be.
One person wrote that it looked like the food they served at their “three-year-old’s birthday party,” except that they’d also included quiche and strawberries.
Sticking with the “kids’ food” theme, someone else commented, “This makes more sense for toddlers than a wedding, in my humble opinion.”
And there was a comment calling the food “pathetic,” and adding, “This looks like a catering spread for work – a low budget one.”
Someone else hit upon what might actually be the truth (but who knows): “This is what happens when you ask your family to cook for your wedding.”
There was also apparently a stack of paper napkins left by the food and not arranged in any way, which is not surprising given the other pictures.
Some people weren’t snarky so much as they were legitimately confused—both by the unwrapped cheese and the strangely-cut oranges. One person wrote, “I don’t even know how they cut orange that way. It must have made it harder as usually, you cut in half then into quarters. That looks like a third.”
Luna, a 23-year-old trans-Australian who moderated a wedding shaming group for six months, along with nine other moderators, told Wired, “If it isn’t shameful, we won’t shame. Camo wedding dresses with hunting rifles on the cake are not tasteful in any capacity, and we will shame them to the death.”
Okay, yikes, camo dresses and cakes with guns does sound a little cuckoo, but this food really isn’t that bad. People invite guests because they value them (or because they have to for whatever reason, but let’s go with the “value” thing for now)—imagine how much it must hurt to see your wedding being made fun of in a wedding-shaming group.
On the other hand, and here’s where I might be a little judgmental, it does make sense that you want your guests to be happy and have a good time, and part of that is eating. Maybe a little more time spent on the arrangement of the food, some folded napkins, and maybe a few cheeses that weren’t made almost entirely of plastic might have made the spread look a little more palatable. Does this qualify me for a job as a wedding planner? Looking into it.