Nowadays most people are perfectly willing to accommodate people’s dietary restrictions.
But for one recently married person on Reddit, one of their vegan wedding guests’ insistence they not be seated at a table where meat was served posed a challenge.
They decided to solve the problem by seating all vegans at the same table, sparking drama as the vegan guests accused them of discriminating.
This made them unsure about how they chose to handle the situation, so they went to the AITA (Am I The A**hole) subReddit for perspective.
The Original Poster (OP), who goes by the name vegantableaita on the site, asked:
“AITA For seating all the vegans at one table at my wedding reception”
They explained:
“My wife and I got married a couple of weeks ago. It wasn’t a huge wedding, we had about 75 guests.”
“During the planning, a handful of my wife’s family members asked us about dinner options because they are vegan.”
“None of my family members are vegan but we wanted to make sure that everyone had good food to eat.”
“At that point we hadn’t talked with a caterer yet, but my wife assured them we would offer vegan options for them.”
“We found a caterer that offered delicious vegan food (we tasted it, very good).”
“When we were planning the seating chart, my wife mentioned that one of her cousins said that she can’t be seated at a table where meat is served.”
“I asked a few questions about it but my wife got frustrated with me so I dropped it.”
“But accommodating this was difficult and eventually I got frustrated too and told my wife that if her cousin is going to be so militaristically vegan about this, then we are just going to seat all the vegans at one table even if it meant splitting up families and friends.”
“After a few more discussions and my wife talking to her cousin again, my wife eventually relented to my idea of having a vegan table.”
“We put that part of the planning behind us and moved on. I literally didn’t even think about it again until we started setting things up for the reception.”
“My wife’s mom noticed that some families weren’t sitting at the same table and asked about it. I told her that we had to sit all the vegans at one table because of my wife’s cousin.”
“My MIL got mad about this and said it’s rude to have family members sitting at different tables and to have one table basically segregating the vegans from the rest of the guests.”
“I told her that unless wife’s cousin wants to sit at a table all by herself, this is the solution we came up with and we aren’t going to change it now.”
“MIL dropped it but I could tell she wasn’t happy.”
“The ceremony went off perfectly but when it came time for the reception, there were grumblings about the vegan table from my wife’s family.”
“While we were going around talking to people, a few of the vegans made comments about how they don’t appreciate being singled out and separate from everyone else.”
“I tried to be polite about it, but the fact that they thought bringing this sort of thing up to me on my wedding day was appropriate really started to rub me the wrong way.”
“When my wife’s cousin (the one who refused to sit at a table with meat) said something to me about it, I told her that we did that because of her and the next time someone asks me about it, I am going to tell them to talk to her about why we had a separate vegan table.”
“She told me I was being discriminatory against vegans and I just turned and walked away. I wasn’t going to put up with that BS any more than I already had.”
“It’s apparently still a thing within my wife’s family and she feels I should have been more willing to find a different solution.”
People on Reddit were then asked to judge who was in the wrong in this situation based on the following categories:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
Opinions varied, with some saying OP had no choice in how to accommodate the cousin while others felt their response was vengeful and inappropriate.
“What different solution? A completely vegan wedding, to accommodate a cousin? No.”“Vegans — despite the protests of some of the most annoyingly militaristic among them — are not a protected class. You found a workable solution. NTA.” –Jonny-Pasadena
“And OP offered a vegan option. It was up to the cousin to politely decline to attend the wedding if she might be seated near meat eaters.”
“Honestly think the solution was pretty crappy myself. The rest of the vegans were clearly not as hung up about this as the one cousin was and would have enjoyed the wedding more with their family.”“They should have just had normal seating and let the cousin fend for herself or eat in a closet.”
“Very soft YTA, making the experience worse for the rest of the vegans and their families to please one cousin who still wasn’t happy was a poor choice.” –Dennis_Ogre
“It seems like ‘some families weren’t sitting at the same table’ means that OP split some people away from their non-vegan partners and children. If that’s the case, I think YTA.” –My_Dramatic_Persona
“Utter bullsh*t.”“None of the other vegans any issue or complaint. So because of one self entitled person they were all separated from their families and singled out because of a dietary restriction they never publicized.”
“OP is absolutely the a**hole for that and it’s absurd to say otherwise.”
“The solution is to have boundaries and not let one person dictate what happens to a dozen others.”
“He and his wife needed to stand up to the cousin and tell her no that is not possible instead of unilaterally rearranging an entire group because of her stupid whims.”
“It’s not that hard.” –EastDeer7419
“My solution for the cousin would have been the choice of sitting with her non-vegan family or putting her meal in a to-go box. Cousin was rude and shouldn’t have been accommodated.” –KathyPlusTwins
“If they had a particular table setting, they would get their vegan plate but if they chose to have a separate table, there was a dedicated table just for vegans and they would be welcome to move.”“Frankly, the planning and communication is severely lacking. I don’t think he’s not the A for the basic rule that you don’t usually split families like that. So, for me it’s still ESH.” –lulububudu
Hopefully OP can find a better solution in the future.