By Angela Proffitt

Over my 15 years of being a planner and designer I have executed many Indian weddings and worked with other various cultures as well. It is so important to me to understand each culture, and the importance of particular food items, especially since this is usually one of the larger costs at any event.

Not being Indian, I always am honored that they trust me to plan, design, and execute their multi-day events. I work so so hard to ensure all of the team members understand the importance of their customs and traditions, so everything is carried out perfectly. Throughout the planning process, we tend to go through different party food catering ideas, multiple meetings with various services starting from decoration to cleaning, and various documents are shared with all vendors containing detailed notes. So it is heartbreaking when something does not go exactly as planned and the client’s experience was less than perfect. We do all of this in the hope that we can make the event as close to perfect.

A recent experience we had while executing a Bengali-American Wedding we had been planning for almost a year is one that I would like to share with you. I love to share experiences in hopes that it will help others and prevent experiences like this from ever happening to anyone.

On Friday, day one of the celebration, everything went well. The Mehndi ceremony was nice, the family arrivals were smooth, and everyone enjoyed themselves. We began load in at the venue for Saturday’s celebration. Saturday afternoon rolled around and we were all set to go for the ceremony. Though the guests were over an hour late, I did not think anything of it as tardiness is normal for their culture. Saturday night was the Gaye Holud, where gifts are presented to the bride and groom (including their wedding attire), tumeric paste is rubbed on their faces and sweets are hand fed to them by their relatives and friends. All of this was done as a beautification process for their reception the next day.

The Gaye Holud ceremony was followed with dinner, each item served containing specific dietary requirements per their religion. Through tastings, phone calls and meetings, we worked with our client and the venue to develop the menus for both Saturday and Sunday. The food on Saturday was perfect. In fact many of the guests commented that they could not believe the venue chef and team made the food. People usually tend to hire an outside event catering company that specializes in Indian food, however, this time, there was no need for it as the venue chef did a pretty good job. On Sunday, the families participated in a traditional gate ceremony where the bride’s family blocked the groom and his family from entering the hall. The groom has to bid to enter into the reception see his bride. Following the ceremony was their reception; the couple loves breakfast food and opted to serve their guests a brunch. Many of the stations for 300+ guests were typical American brunch items with the exception of the meat. The omelette station had turkey bacon, and the Nashville hot chicken was prepared a special way.

The venue put together a Banquet Event Order, or BEO, that detailed what was to be served and how it was to be prepared. Both families are Muslim and do not eat pork, so there were specific dietary requirements to accommodate. The venue included a note on each page of the BEO noting all meat must be Halal (meaning NO pork). With respect to meat, the term Halal means “prepared appropriately for human consumption.” The primary reason they do this is because they believe that God has instructed them to do so.

The week of the wedding, the bride wanted to add salmon eggs benedict to the menu. When we received the revised BEO, adding salmon put them a bit over budget. To help with the cost, we ended up serving half salmon benedict, and half regular eggs benedict. Since we were so close to the wedding day, those two menu items were added onto the last page, and separate from the rest of the menu on the BEO.

The brunch began and guests started visiting the food stations. One of the guests asked a chef attendant if the eggs benedict contained pork or was it turkey bacon, and the attendant responded “it’s canadian bacon, a traditional eggs benedict.” Well you would have thought the president of the United States was just shot with the madness that thus unraveled.

When I received a text from one of my team members of what had happened, I was off property checking on another event, but I immediately raced back to the venue. The moment I walked in the bride’s mother said to me “two of my friends have left and are going to the hospital to have their stomach pumped; they are very upset that they ate ham without knowing and why is their ham on every table?” Well the rumors had already begun in a moment of 15 minutes. My team did a fantastic job of apologizing and calming everyone down.

My team and I went back to our room to get to the bottom of how this could have happened. We spoke to the chef, reviewed the BEO once more, and saw that since the eggs benedict was added at the last minute to the bottom and not with the menu, the note for it to be made with turkey bacon was not included.

Now, as a detail oriented person, if all other meat is Halal why would the eggs benedict be any different? But when you have a kitchen staff who is going off a piece of paper to cook multiple items at once for 300+ people, at the end of the day they did exactly what the BEO said. However it was the venue’s mistake.

The family left Sunday evening saying how happy they were with everything, except the food at the brunch. They told us that finding ham is the equivalent of having cockroaches and rats in their food. The mother of the bride said to me “I expect a refund” which of course the venue would not charge them for the eggs benedict.

The week following this wedding, I probably spent 30+ hours between emails and phone calls from the bride’s mother, family members, the director of catering at the venue, the venue sales manager and so on about this major mistake. The rumors flying around between guests were completely blown out of proportion. Adding a lot of time for me to apologize on the venue’s behalf and explain what really happened to squash the exaggerated and false rumors.

Even though we profusely apologized and the venue refunded the eggs benedict, the family was still requesting a FULL refund for Sunday. At this point, I stood behind the venue; all other food was consumed, was delicious, and prepared properly. Asking the venue to refund all the money was not appropriate or valid.

However when people don’t get what they want, they sue. And although none of this was directed at me or my planning and design team, I will still be subpoenaed to court. Thank goodness I have a great contract that covers me and my team in situations like this.

It is heartbreaking as a well seasoned planner; we work SO hard to ensure everything is perfect and something small but major goes wrong. For the next 20+ years all that people will talk about when this wedding is mentioned is that there was ham. And people wonder why wedding planners are so controlling? This is just one example of why.

Although they had a wonderful planning experience and the design was exactly what they wanted; centered around their love for sci-fi and video games, no one left talking about that. To avoid future mistakes such as this, steps are being taken from the venue kitchen staff to better educate their team.

Looking back, I wish I had gone to the BEO meeting the week of the wedding with the venue staff to ensure everyone understood what “Halal” meant. Now, is that my job? No way. However, over-communicating is never a bad thing. Especially when it prevents something like this.