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Wedding guest walks out over one 'outrageous' menu rule

Food and menus at a rustic wedding divided opinion
Wedding menus can be hard to navigate at the best of times. Photo: Getty Images

We all know the pain of an alternate drop wedding menu.

If you have ever tried to will the fish to appear by way of intent staring, you’ll know that you’re almost guaranteed to get saddled with the steak, and vice-versa.

What if however, a bride and groom decided to divide alternate plates using a set of criteria outside of where you happen to be sitting at the table?

One wedding guest found out the hard way after she attended a wedding where the food was divided, bizarrely, by gender.

Yep, that old chestnut has sprouted brand new roots that are wheedling their way into our dinner menus.

If you, like many, find yourself wondering how on earth you would decide what food is female friendly and what is exclusively male fare, then look no further.

For this event, somebody decided that women’s food should go by a pink and white colour code, while men should be given an assortment of some of the heaviest dishes available.

Female wedding guest was surprised when she realised men and women were served different dishes
The guest couldn't understand the decision to divide the menu by gender. Photo: Getty Images

For the ladies there was an entree of prawns, a main of grilled chicken and potatoes and a strawberry shortcake dessert.

The men tucked into a mushroom risotto, followed by roast beef and finished off with a chocolate bomb.

Oh, and the ladies got a piece of wedding cake while the men threw back a glass of whiskey.

A strong reaction

If your stomach just growled a little with rage (or hunger if you happened to be on the receiving end of grilled chicken and strawberry shortcake) you’re not alone, the wedding guest in question chose to leave the wedding rather than participate in a menu divided by gender.

"It was perfectly pleasant until we sat down to the wedding breakfast to see the menu was divided by sex,” she wrote on parenting forum Mumsnet.

"Everybody at the table was outraged but no one said anything.”

She added that oddly, the couple themselves were a progressive pair.

The groom was described as working ‘in a very progressive part of women’s health’, and the bride as a feminist who accompanied the guest on rallies and marches.

As it turns out it was the groom’s ‘traditional’ parents who insisted on the menu division, but that didn’t stop the guest from making her feelings known.

“I took one bit of my prawn risotto before deciding to leave,” she wrote.

The internet weighs in

The forum wasn’t sold on the woman’s reaction however.

While some backed up her decision saying the wedding sounded ‘utterly bizarre’, others had some stronger feelings on the subject.

“Yes it was incredibly sexist and outdated, but at a wedding that you are a guest at I think you should have kept your thoughts to yourself,” one user wrote.

“A bit of an over reaction if I might say. What happened to couples doing what they want at their own wedding?" another commented.

Navigating the complexities of a wedding can be difficult, and this woman isn’t the first to come face to face with the whacky behaviour weddings seem to bring out.

One woman found herself forced to choose between her tattoos and her friend after a bride demanded she dye her hair and hide her ink so as not to clash with her theme.

Another wedding left a maid of honour saddled with over 100 live goldfish, after the couple’s ‘cute’ wedding favour idea turned sour.

All in all, the alternate drop has never looked so good.

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