‘I was invited to my friend’s wedding, then they ordered me to clean dishes’

“You’re springing this on me at the wedding? Absolutely not. I’m dressed up and not dressed appropriately for kitchen duty.”

Alexandra Feiam

3 min read

May 1, 2024 - 7:36AM

Family Life

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When you’re invited to a wedding, there are a few things you can expect to see: a cake, an array of nice outfits, and plenty of tears flowing.

But the last thing you’d expect to see were the guests waiting tables and dishing out the food.

For Kyle*, however, his attendance was more than just a chance to see loved ones and party - it was a day of hard labour.

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Ten guests were told to clean the cutlery and crockery from the other tables. Picture: iStock

Guests asked to clean all tables at friend’s wedding

The wedding was huge, Kyle’s wife recalled on Reddit, with roughly 200 people in attendance.

“For the reception, he was seated at a table of about 10 similarly-aged men (mid-twenties), who were all friends of the groom,” she said.

The wedding was an absolute hit, but when it was time to eat, Kyle noticed things were starting to go awry.

“The dinner was a buffet line,” read the post.

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“When he went up to get his food, he noticed that the mother and grandmother of the bride were serving it.”

Kyle thought it was “a little weird” that the bride and grandmother were serving food rather than wait staff, but he brushed it off and sat back down at his table.

But once he finished eating, things started getting more unusual.

The groom’s mother approached Kyle’s table and started chatting to the guests; it was a touching reunion with someone they hadn’t seen for a few years.

But the groom’s mum had ulterior motives, as she quickly revealed.

“She then asked if they could please bus all the guest’s tables,” Kyle’s wife said. “And take the dishes and glasses and trash to the venue’s kitchen.”

Kyle and the rest of the table were slightly confused by the request, as he was a guest at the wedding, not part of the bridal party or the wait staff.

“They were all a bit shocked but agreed and started running around the room clearing tables,” the post read.

After clearing the tables of the 200-guest wedding party, they sat back down and took a sigh of relief.

But they weren’t done yet, they quickly learned.

“Oh sorry, I forgot to mention!” the groom’s mother’s voice boomed from behind.

“Could you actually dump out all the cups, scrape the bowls and plates and load the dishwashers, please?”

Kyle was understandably “annoyed” by the request, but he “didn’t feel that he could deny” it, so he stood up once again.

Joined by 10 other guys, the group spent the next hour “doing the dishes” before being allowed to return to the reception.

“Talk about tacky. Ew”

Mouths were agape in the Reddit community, who couldn’t fathom asking guests to do such a thing.

“Send them a bill for your services,” someone said. “Talk about tacky. Ew.”

“Like I think it’s cool and fine to help out if communicated beforehand, but yikes…” read another comment.

Others wondered why the family couldn’t fork out some cash to hire help before the big day.

“For a couple hundred bucks, the couple could have avoided this by hiring a couple of high school kids to bus and clean the dishes,” someone pointed out.

“I wonder what would have happened if the guys had said, ‘We're guests, not help. No to bussing the tables and no to cleaning the dishes’?”

Another option was to ask a relative or friend to help out beforehand and offer to pay for their services.

“Or even ask the bridal parties to do it?” suggested another. “I still don’t condone that, but it would’ve been a little better than having random guests

“If they’d asked ahead of time, I may have said yes for a good friend,” said another.

“But spring it on me at the wedding? Absolutely not. I’m dressed up and not dressed appropriately for kitchen duty.”

*Names have been changed