Vegans often get a bad rap in the media. They're seen as being overly preachy and righteous, and are frequently accused of putting animals above their fellow human beings.
A lot of the time, this simply isn't true. There are plenty of vegetarians and vegans out there who only ever mention their dietary preference when offered something they can't eat, and who would never dream of challenging their meat-eating peers on their decision to chow down on hamburgers and chicken wings.
Unfortunately, there are also a few individuals who do fit the stereotype.
One such person, a bride from Australia, recently posted on a vegan Facebook group in order to gauge some responses on her decision to ban all non-vegans from her wedding because she and her husband-to-be "don’t want to host murderers".
"When your ‘family’ tries to guilt trip you into letting them come to your fully vegan wedding, even though they’re omnivores," the unnamed bride posted with two laugh-cry emojis.
"Just for some context, some family members were told they are not invited to my wedding because we don’t want to host murderers. Our wedding is supposed to be one of the happiest days of our lives.
"They have consistently attacked me and my partner just for being vegan, but when it comes to my wedding they want to be all buddy buddy again. When I broke the news to them, all I got was attacked because I don’t want the weight of having people that still kill animals (the very beings we are trying to protect) at my wedding on my conscience."
Of course, everyone has the right to have their special day exactly as they want it, but some folks from the group - fellow vegans - thought that this was a step too far.
"As a vegan, this is messed up, … you can’t go around calling your family murderers!" commented one person.
"She is out of her mind," another added. "I’d be happy to cut her off of my life if I were the family."
A third agreed, saying: "I totally understand serving vegan food exclusively, that makes sense … but banning people and calling them murderers is just ridiculous."
None of these responses sat particularly well with the bride, unsurprisingly.
"I posted in here because I thought I would get some understanding from the people doing the same thing as me. I have tried to educate these people for more than 2 years with no result so I'm not putting up with with it at my wedding of all days when they probably will cause problems there too.
"I'm not sorry if that makes me "rude" or "a b***h" because I am not compromising the ethics that I share with everyone here."
The heated thread culminated when a family member stumbled across the post and added her perspective.
"What’s the most f***ed up thing you’ve ever experienced?" she commented. "I just got un-invited to a wedding that I was meant to be a bridesmaid for, because I’m not vegan. To make matters worse, this girl is FAMILY who I’ve grown up with my whole life."
The bride responded by deleting the original post, along with the dozens of comments left below it.
Many people were left scratching their heads over the incident, especially as catering for a vegan wedding would have been an excellent opportunity for the bride to show her meat-and-dairy-eating friends and family that, actually, a plant-based diet can be pretty delicious.
Perhaps she'll reconsider before the big day.
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