'AITA For telling people not to eat the food at my sister's wedding?' UPDATED
"AITA For telling people not to eat the food at my sister's wedding?"
My husband (27m) and I (26f) were married eight months ago. We had a BIG wedding with lots of food and drinks and people. I knew we would likely have leftovers, so had arranged for them to be donated to the soup kitchen we sometimes work with, however, my mom went behind my back and took most of it with her. I didn't really know what happened to the food. Until now.
My sister Callie (30f) got married over the long weekend. She didn't want to mess with any of the planning and- knowing how my mom was during my wedding- decided to let our mom take over the whole thing. All we had to do was show up where we were told and party.
The ceremony was beautiful, but it was when the buffet was revealed that I noticed something odd. The food looked eerily familiar. Like, identical to what I had for my wedding except for a little more dried out and sad.
I found an opening and went to ask my mom about it where she happily told me she 'saved a fortune' by unfreezing the food from my wedding to serve to the guests now. I was horrified and immediately voiced my concerns about safety.
She got upset and said I was acting like a snob and should be happy the food wasn't going to waste. I argued that it was never going to be wasted, but she wouldn't hear it.
I didn't want to make a scene, but was worried about people getting sick so snuck off to see my sister. She was horribly embarrassed- mentioned that mom said something about saving money but didn't question it because she didn't want to foot the bill like I had. She told me not to eat the food and thanked me for the warning.
From there, my husband and I discretely started telling some guests to be weary of the food and the rest of the night was fine. My mom caught some flack for being cheap, but I've also been catching heat. Some of our relatives have been saying that I intentionally made my family look bad and that the food was fine as it was frozen and then defrosted for the wedding.
They say no one would have known if I didn't make a stink over it. I don't know if I did anything wrong, I could use some help and would like to know if I should apologize. AITA?
Here were the top rated comments after this updated clarification from the OP:
NTA. OMG!!! It's not that it was stored frozen for eight months; it's that it sat on a buffet table for god knows how long at your wedding, then in your mother's car, before it was frozen. This is not only tacky but super dangerous.
Absolutely, this. Assuming it was even frozen as soon as possible, sealed satisfactorily or defrosted safely. People have varied of ideas about what is safe to eat.
NTA- has nothing to do with it being frozen but HOW it was frozen, stored and then thawed out. Unless mom has a food handler training, I'm sure that food had 'extras'.
JFC, NTA. That is straight up unsanitary and a major health hazard. Your mother is cheap, gross and dangerous, oh yeah and T A.
NTA. That was next level cheapskate behaviour from your mom and she could have made everyone very sick.
In ten years? This will be a really funny story. It’s not funny now. WTF and I don’t think I would ever ever let mom cater an event even as small as a fourth of July picnic. NTA.
Two hours later OP came back with these edits:
EDIT: I'm getting a lot of repeat questions, so I figured I'd post here:
1. My wedding had about 200 guests. My husband has a large family and we intentionally planned for more people to come and knew that a lot wouldn't for one reason or another so knew we'd likely have leftovers and wanted to be smart about it.
2. My sister and her husband have been together for about 10 years. They recently decided to get married for tax reasons and wanted to do a courthouse wedding, but my mom BEGGED her to let her do an 'event'. So, she had a small wedding with only 50 people. My sister HATES planning and people, so she let my mom do everything
3. Have ya'll ever heard of garage freezers? They're super common where I'm from.
After the edits OP got it to it with one commenter:
So now that you've edited your story so much, I guess you aren't the a&^*%le anymore. As such, assuming your story is true, your mom would likely have caused an entire gathering to be exposed to food poisoning. Leaving food out, unfrozen, for even two hours, is too long to refreeze it. This makes you NTA.
I still doubt that any of this is true, because of all the holes in the story, like how you didn't find out about this immediately, since the shelter you arranged to take the food would have contacted you wondering where all the food was.
I also find it hard to believe that someone who owns a freezer like this would think it's okay to refreeze food after it's sat out at serving temperature for hours on end. I own one. I know what you can put in it and what you can't. It's just ridiculous for them to think this is okay. So there you have it... you're no longer the a&^*%le
I had a wedding for 200 people (family and friends), my sister had a wedding for 50 people (family) in the neighborhood clubhouse. My mom has an outside freezer (meaning in her garage) in addition to her normal freezer like a lot of people do...wild you would assume so much lol