Wedding Frustrations

[Jordanaustino]

I got married yesterday. It was a wonderful event, a great party, and I'm very excited to be married to my wife (who has celiacs). Only one detail went very wrong, and the next week is going to suck for her.

We had catered food, there were gluten-free options specified. We had a gluten-free cake, gluten-free pizza. We also had gluten options because all but 3 people can eat it and it is much cheaper. We worked with a well regarded catering company, all contracts specified that the bride had celiacs and to take precautions to avoid cross contamination etc. We had put down orders for what would be brought to us to eat, 2 gluten free pizzas picked out. They brought us the glutenful pizza.

The company we got the pizza from has restaurants in town, it's a known safe place for her. The gluten-free crust is excellent. I was eating gluten free for kissing purposes all evening (our place is gluten free entirely, but I usually eat gluten when we go out to eat). With everything outlined very specifically, we let our guard down a little bit and assumed things were right. After thinking about my first couple bites (and her first), I called over people to make sure the food was right, they checked... and it wasn't. Thus here we are, she is bedridden, full body aches, mild fever, brain fog, etc. We missed the morning after brunch with family. We didn't get to enjoy the $$$$ hotel we stayed in. Fortunately, nothing set in too quickly, and were mostly able to enjoy the rest of the reception, but she didn't get to drink any wine, which is especially unfortunate as we had our wedding at a Vineyard. (it is our experience that a glutening  + alcohol => alcohol poisoning) I am however happy I thought about it and asked, I started to assume they knew what they were doing. That I was just being anxious (it happens at your wedding), but I checked because 1 bite vs 2 slices of pizza would two very different worlds in terms of severity of issues.

There is not much we can do at this point except get really angry at the catering company and maybe get some money back, but for everyone else: Remember it never hurts to ask, and try not to be too complacent. For you, or your loved ones sake.

[Ennis-TX]

Sorry this happened, one thing I might suggest and pointers for anyone else. Get a 100% gluten free place to cater for the Gluten free side, and keep the gluten on one side of hall gluten free on the others so no one mixes up the serving ware or double dips.
Perhaps renew your vows in a year or so and have a REDO with extra precautions for your honeymoon, having a special day ruined like this deserves a do over.
Future things. Nima Tester makes a gluten tester, expensive but it can help, there are tricks to testing prepared meals like getting abit of each ingredients and the parts that touched the pan/grill. 
GlidenX makes a pill that lowers the severity of symptoms, not perfect but it helps breakdown some of the gluten proteins in the stomach before they reach the intestines thus lowering the severity of the exposure and shortening symptoms.

I do gluten free chef work, nothing super crazy, or extravagant, but sometimes people want a home cooked meal that is gluten free and not have to fix it themselves. I also run a gluten free bakery doing small orders, and sometimes cater easy meals to event.  But I get the whole cooking/catering thing, and wish you guys luck with any future endeavors. OH BTW there was a incident about a year ago with a catering company doing exactly what happened to you and the couple sued them for it.

 

[kareng]

That sucks.  I think you should review the company on yelp, etc.  Also, any local FB pages.  That carelessness would concern me about the safety of all the food.

[Learningneverends]

While  this was a horrible incident,  does everyone find it reasonable that destroying the company thru social media is right?   Was it malicious?  With intent?  I am so sorry this occurred, but l get more livid at people who think an accident means they have a privilege to ruin someone.  We've somehow been conditioned to think if we throw a tantrum we will get whatever for free, or in this case we are unable to forgive.  What about the family member who knows your celiac, brings a full on gluten item to dinner.  What's  the recourse for this? Loss of employment because they are obviously irresponsible and not a team player?

[Ennis-TX]

4 hours ago, Learningneverends said:

While  this was a horrible incident,  does everyone find it reasonable that destroying the company thru social media is right?  

I would suggest against calling them on on social media or "destroying them" I would suggest reviewing them on like "FindMeGlutenFree" etc and warning to make sure about their food.

 

4 hours ago, Learningneverends said:

What about the family member who knows your celiac, brings a full on gluten item to dinner.  What's  the recourse for this? Loss of employment because they are obviously irresponsible and not a team player? 

The food gets thrown out and I kick them out of the house and would be a long time before I trust them again.
This would be the equivalent of someone making a normal person a exlax chocolate pie with a hand full of rat poison pellets on top. SURE it will not kill me but they damn well know it is going to leave me on the floor vomiting, sick for days, and married to the toilet.

 

[kareng]

I don’t see any thing wrong with giving an honest review .  I would want to know if I were thinking of hiring them.  Just as I would like to see a review that they did a good job or the food was awful.  This sounds more like carelessness than a simple mistake.  

[cyclinglady]

I would let it go, unless they advertise that they offer gluten free options safe for celiacs.  I can not imagine that I would trust any catering company who has not been specifically trained and certified in handling allergy meals.  I would have insisted on touring their kitchen just to be sure.  Even then, I would be wary as I would want to avoid getting sick on my wedding day and honeymoon.   Did they do well otherwise?  Were your guests happy?  No need destroying a business when you can not prove without a reasonable doubt that she got sick from them.  What about rehearsal dinner?  Maybe that made her sick.  Maybe just the stress of getting married made her sick.  Maybe she has another autoimmune disease that can not be controlled by a gluten free diet.  Maybe it was not gluten (did you test?).   Just throwing it out there.  

It probably was the pizza, but ordering pizza?  When it arrived I would worry if it were actually gluten free.  How could you even tell?  You did not open the box yourself.  It would be so easy to mix up pizzas.  Do you think the server could tell the difference?  I would not trust even my own mother (and she is one smart cookie).  

We just worked with a local caterer for our High school band banquet recently.   They offered gluten free.  They said that hubby and I could go through the buffet line first.  But we did not eat.  We ate before we attended the banquet and spent the time working and socializing.  Get sick for $10 meal? Not worth it.    The banquet committee worked hard to provide some gluten free options.  A nice gesture, but they do not walk in my shoes every single day.  

I know she probably wanted to feel like a normal bride.  I get that.  I think your expections were too high.   Let it go.  

Congratulations!  I wish you a long and happy married life!  

[Jordanaustino]

5 hours ago, cyclinglady said:

Did they do well otherwise?  Were your guests happy?  No need destroying a business when you can not prove without a reasonable doubt that she got sick from them.  What about rehearsal dinner?  Maybe that made her sick.  Maybe just the stress of getting married made her sick.  Maybe she has another autoimmune disease that can not be controlled by a gluten free diet.  Maybe it was not gluten (did you test?).   Just throwing it out there.  

It probably was the pizza, but ordering pizza?  When it arrived I would worry if it were actually gluten free.  How could you even tell?  You did not open the box yourself.  It would be so easy to mix up pizzas.  Do you think the server could tell the difference?  I would not trust even my own mother (and she is one smart cookie).  

2

In our instance, the catering company, organized getting food from a restaurant and served their food. We have eaten in the restaurant from multiple times where the food came from. Our contract noted that the bride had celiacs, separate utensils were used, gluten-free was specified to be prepped separately, cakes and pizzas were put on the buffet on separate tables from the non gluten-free food etc. It was buffet for all but us. The catering company brought us our food before anyone else ate, they brought the non-gluten free food because the staff on site made an oversight. Yes it is just an oversight, but one which was specified in 6 places in our contract and was easily avoidable that ruins someone's next week.

Fortunately, I was able to catch it because I'm familiar with the difference in crusts. She had one bite and spit the second out before getting the correct food given to us, but I think everyone here knows how well one bite of full gluten bread goes over. It is the first time she has had any non-cross contamination glutening since getting fully diagnosed. Yes, we could have double checked asked when we were given food that it was gluten-free, but we didn't. It shouldn't have been necessary, it was in our contract on the first page, as well as on the spot that specified exactly what should be put on our plates. I understand doing so prevents things from happening, but I think people in this community too often accept fault for others incompetence. Sometimes it borders on victim blaming. We will be extra cautious and be asking extra questions for a while, but what happened isn't our fault.

FWIW We've had catered meals before and she has been ok, we eat out at new restaurants and 9/10 times come out ok. We booked with a top local catering company, and a trusted restaurant for safe food (based on multiple trips from us).

16 hours ago, Learningneverends said:

While  this was a horrible incident,  does everyone find it reasonable that destroying the company thru social media is right?   Was it malicious?  With intent?  I am so sorry this occurred, but l get more livid at people who think an accident means they have a privilege to ruin someone.  We've somehow been conditioned to think if we throw a tantrum we will get whatever for free, or in this case we are unable to forgive.  What about the family member who knows your celiac, brings a full on gluten item to dinner.  What's  the recourse for this? Loss of employment because they are obviously irresponsible and not a team player?

We are not going on a public name and shame tour. We have taken things up with the catering company, we are getting a partial refund and they are going to be giving extra training to staff to make sure it doesn't happen again. I think this is probably the best outcome we could achieve in that we will be getting enough money back to schedule a nice trip for just us to enjoy, and hopefully, we help ensure it doesn't happen to someone. I'm sure at some point we will give an honest review of various companies we dealt with. There were some areas our catering company did very well with, and they will get credit for that.

However, I don't think a breach of contract requires malicious intent to deserve a bad review. Our contract specified gluten-free food for us, noted that the bride has celiacs, and they gave us full gluten food anyways. Even if it is an accident, it is a problem. This breach of contract is why we will be getting a partial refund. Hopefully, they will do better with such instances after aforementioned training which will be occurring, but we will likely note what occurred in our reviews.

As for loss of employment, if you can't read or follow directions indicated by your boss, a loss of employment may occur. I'm not saying anyone in this instance should be fired, and I'm not asking for it, but if someone read the order and gave us the wrong food anyways that is an outcome that someone might decide should occur, especially if it is a pattern (which I have no idea if it is). 

[cyclinglady]

Thanks for the clarification!  I am glad it worked out for you both.