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Maltese Woman Ordered To Pay More Than €12,000 Over Wedding Reception That Ran Out Of Food

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As part of our traditional hospitality, many Maltese people have a hardwired concern that there’s never enough food to go by. One Maltese bride, however, claimed she was proven right when her wedding reception ran out of food for her 500 guests halfway through, leading to her refusing to pay the caterers. Even though the wedding went down four years ago, a civil suit on the matter has just come to an end… with the Maltese woman being ordered to pay upwards of €12,000.

The court case saw a number of family members and employees from the catering company, Busy Bee Ltd, testifying over the last couple of years. The bride and her mother claimed that they had raised their concerns on the selected food not being enough for their 500  guest list. The assistant catering manager had allegedly reassured them that the selected items were more than enough to feed everyone.

Apparently, however, halfway through the reception, issues arose when guests started complaining about the food being served. Times of Malta reported how, in the midst of the complaints, a waiter allegedly told guests that the catering was tailored for 400 people, and not the present 500. By the end of the wedding, the caterer’s representative informed the father of the bride that there was absolutely no food left, going on to say that the guests had “even tucked into plastic”.

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Madam Justice Jacqueline Padovani Grima, who was presiding over the Civil Court’s First Hall, concluded that “there had been enough food according to norm”. 

Busy Bee Ltd were also proven to have acted in a “highly professional manner”, with the head waiter testifying that when the food was delivered to the reception hall, the wedding organiser had confirmed that “all was according to the order placed by the bride.”

To make matters worse for the bride’s case, it had been proven that the reception had lasted longer than usual. By 5pm, the couple hadn’t even cut the traditional cake, and the entire reception carried on well up to 8:30pm. “The caterer was surely not to blame if the bride ordered enough food to last five hours, when in fact the reception lasted some seven hours,” the court said.

The catering company had ordered 26 items per guests, which worked out to around 1 kilo of food per person. But while the court found that amount to be within standard practice, the 500 kg of food turned out to not be enough for the guests at this particular wedding.

By the end, the court upheld the caterer’s claim, ordering the bride to pay €12,359… along with interest accrued since 2014.

What do you make of this case? Let us know in the comments below

READ NEXT: 13 Things That Could Only Go Wrong At A Maltese Wedding

Lovin Malta's Head of Content, Dave has been in journalism for the better half of the last decade. Prefers Instagram, but has been known to doomscroll on TikTok. Loves chicken, women's clothes and Kanye West (most of the time).

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