My sister is getting married in a few weeks, and I keep forgetting that that also means that my in-laws are coming in a few weeks, because my well-meaning mother decided to invite them thinking they would appreciate the invitation but not come, and instead they enthusiastically accepted immediately (I could have told my mom that would be the outcome if she'd asked, but it was too late).
When I remember that they're coming is when things like this happen: The wedding is not kosher, but my sister is getting kosher meals for my family and any other guests who need it. She asked if my in-laws wanted kosher meals. They keep more or less kosher in the house, but they eat out at non-kosher restaurants, so she wasn't sure what they would want in this case.
We asked them. Instead of understanding the question as, "Do you feel the need to have kosher food that she will pay a bit extra for you to have, or can you be served what the majority of the guests are having?" they seemingly took it to mean, "Everyone else has only 2 meal options to choose from, but because you are related to the kosher-keeping people, you get a bonus 2 meal options to pick from, for a total of 4!" They wanted to know the details of all 4 meals so they could pick which one sounded the best.
Problem is, while my sister knows exactly what the 2 non-kosher options are, the only information she has from the kosher caterer is that there is a chicken option and a fish option. So weeks after they were first asked, my in-laws had still not informed us whether or not they wanted kosher meals, because they couldn't decide. We finally had to call them tonight and request an immediate answer because time is up. When we told them that my sister does not know the details of the kosher meals and will not know them before the deadline by which they need to decide, my MIL suggested that perhaps my mother knows the details. 🙃 Because yes, definitely, my 29-year-old grown adult sister who loves wedding planning must simply not have thought to ask about this, but surely her mother, who is only marginally involved with the planning, did ask and then proceeded not to tell either the bride or the main kosher-keeping guests. Makes sense.
We explained that that was not the case, and suggested that if it was very important for her to know exactly what their meals would be, they should choose one of the non-kosher meals because we do know exactly what those are. She said she had to call us back. And then proceeded to do so several minutes later, at which point she and my FIL interrogated my husband in-depth for multiple minutes about which of the kosher meal options each member of our family chose and why, before finally settling on kosher fish for both of them, despite still not knowing what kind of fish it will be (also my husband is the only member of our family getting the fish, and his reasoning was not wanting to be fleishig, so not sure what exactly swayed them to that decision after hearing our choices).
Was that really so hard?! 🤦🏻♀️
