The Wedding

I attended the wedding of a non-vegetarian friend of mine Saturday night. It was not a large affair and I don't expect people to cater to my unique eating habits, so I ate a snack beforehand and expected to load up on cake.

And though the buffet was stocked with the usual suspects (chicken fingers, prime rib, meat ravioli), there was a very well-stocked fruit and vegetable selection as well as fettucine with a selection of sauces and one of my favorite party foods, spanakopita. And truly the best wedding cake I've ever tasted (the groom's sister-in-law made it)--strawberry cake with buttercream frosting. However, having eaten that cake sometime after 9:00pm, meant I was wide awake on a sugar buzz until the wee hours of the morning.

I started to feel a little guilty about being a vegetarian that evening, though. After the ceremony, the groom asked me if I was happy with the food. I just felt terrible. This man just recently lost his mother (as in, just days before his wedding) and he was getting married and he asks to see if I ate okay? I just felt very self-conscious at that moment. I feel like my lifestyle choice is very unselfish, but it was hard to feel that way when I know that these two people had to actually think about whether or not I--and just one other guest--would have enough to eat.

There's a larger social commentary to be made here, I'm sure, but I don't have the energy for it. I will say that for most weddings, I really don't expect the food to be good and I felt that way long before I was ever a vegetarian. But I do expect the cake to be good. There's no excuse for bad cake.