A chef who catered for a reception featured in My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding today branded the guests ANIMALS after hundreds of travellers went on a drunken rampage.
Caterer Neil Green also claims he is still owed £4,000 from the bride’s father – nearly EIGHT months after the wedding.
Neil, 35, put on a three-course banquet and hog roast for gypsy bride Violet Ann Stubley, 22, and her husband Larry, 21, when they got hitched on July 10 last year.
Viewers watched the couple tie the knot on last week’s Channel 4 programme which only showed the early stages of the reception.
But dad-of-two Neil says the wedding descended into ”drunken mayhem” which also left him £4,000 out of pocket.
He said boozy guests snatched food from waitresses, sprayed each other with chocolate and hurled fruit at each at other during the six-hour bash.
The reception, held at Leicester racecourse in Oadby, Leics, was also flooded with almost 100 gatecrashers and hangers-on.
Neil said: ”They behaved like animals. They were snatching food out of waitresses’ hands and were just arrogant and bolshy.
”They were shouting at my waitresses, ordering them to bring more food.
”Most of the guests were off their heads on booze and were exceptionally rude – it was drunken mayhem.
”It was manic. They were throwing food and fruit around the tables, splashing the chocolate fountain around.
”We catered for 230 guests but more than 300 turned up, it was mad. They were hassling the staff, asking for two plates at a time.
”In the evening we put on a hog roast and it was virtually stripped to the bone before we even served it. They were like locusts.
”I worked from 4am till 10pm. By the end, I was exhausted.
”Staff at the racecourse told me they caused so much mess and damage they spent hundreds hiring a professional cleaning company to come in a clean up.”
Neil also blasted Channel 4 for deliberately editing out the gypsy’s outrageous behaviour.
He said: ”The wedding was nothing like the show on TV. Channel 4 made the gypsies look nice and friendly but they were anything but.
”It was the first gypsy wedding I have ever catered for and it will be my last.”
Ironically, Violet Ann, who lives in Kent, accused Channel 4 of ”ruining the memory” of her wedding day.
She said Channel 4 included her wedding in a show which also featured violent bare knuckle brawling and men boozing at a graveside.
Neil, who runs Neil Green Catering, was paid a £1,500 deposit by Violet’s dad William Stubley, 57, to cater the wedding reception on July 10 last year.
But he was never paid the additional £4,000 and claims each time he tries to get the money he is threatened with violence.
He said: ”The Thursday after the wedding, I went to Mr Stubley’s house. His wife answered the door and told me he wasn’t in but I knew she was lying.
”She used coarse language and told me he didn’t want to see me. I was then approached by a gang of six men, including Stubley’s two sons.
”They were shouting at me and one was holding a crowbar. Another threatened to get his chainsaw.
”A few months later I chased them up again but I got the same rough treatment.
”The following night, the locks had been ripped out of my van. I can’t prove it was them but it seems too much like a coincidence.
”My wife says leave it but £4,000 is a lot of money for a small company like mine.
”I returned to their house last week and a gang of men pulled up in a car.
”They told me they were going to jam something down my throat if I didn’t leave them alone and even shunted me with their car.
”I spoke to the police but they told me there’s nothing they can do at this stage.”
Stubley, who lives in a £352,000 five-bedroom detached house with wife Joan, 56, in Markham, Leics., was yesterday unavailable for comment.
A man who answered the door claiming to be the handyman said: ”They’ve gone out drinking and they could be gone for days.”
A spokeswoman for Leicester racecourse yesterday said: ”We never had any issue with the wedding.”
A Channel 4 spokeswoman said: ”This is the first I have heard about any problems at the wedding. It is not something we are aware of.”
