A Lot on Their Plates
The wedding plans are well on their way.
We were assigned our photographer from our wedding picture company, I’ve lost about a third of the weight I want to lose, CB is going to start looking for his suit this week, and my mother sent the wedding invitations out to the Belgian side of the family less than a week ago.
And for once, the cultural hiccup had nothing to do with me.
See, the thing you have to know about Belgian wedding receptions is that the eating is a major part of it.
Like, the main part of it.
Like, the first dance won’t start until midnight because up until that point, people are still eating.
There’s the opening drinkies and h’ors douevres (which is a bitch to spell and I will, from now on, use the Dutch word for them, which is hapjes, which is said more like HOP-yus, see, there, you learned some Dutch because this blog is nothing if not educational *snort*), followed by a three course sit down meal and rounded off with coffee, a dessert buffet and a wedding cake (you’ll hear about the cake another time, cause it’s worth telling you about). Often times, because the dancing lasts until 2 or 3 in the morning, people will also serve sandwiches or even fries with mayo very late into the evening.
Belgians reeeaallly like their food, especially when it’s food served in dinner party fashion.
Anyway, the important thing to remember here is that in Belgium, the couple chooses the menu for the reception and there are no options.
What we choose, you eat.
If you go into anafylactic shock due to the food containing shellfish or nuts, well, you’ll be in Belgium, so no one will bother to help you sue us. Tough shit.
But I digress.
The invitations to the American wedding/reception were received last night by all of CB’s attending relatives and more than half of them ended up calling CB’s mom all confused because why were there two lines and a list of all the courses under each line? Was it a typo? What were they supposed to do?
Because none of them has ever had a choice of what main course they eat at a wedding. We’re offering a choice of chicken, salmon or pasta as the main course but, not knowing they get a choice, when CB’s relatives saw the three options, they assumed each one was a course and had no clue why the meal was listed twice on each RSVP card. Cabanamom had no clue either, so she ended up calling CB who had to explain to her that no, there was no typo on our wedding invitations, but rather, each person had to write their name and then check off their meal choice. And all was right with the world.
Or at least it will be until the Belgian contingency finds out that our imported beer is Heineken.*
*To the average Belgian, Heineken is complete and total swill. It’s like Pabst Blue Ribbon or Milwaukee Best or pretty much any other beer you can think of that tastes like someone blew bubbles into toilet water.
This is the sort of thing that I really love about this place. It has so much character. Some of the corners of this place are like visiting an old homestead in the countryside. 
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