The feast is in a barn in the summertime; two sheaves of grain with a rake recalls the work of harvesting, and the hard peasant life.

Two pipers play the pijpzak, an unbreeched boy in the foreground licks a plate, a wealthy man at the far right is talking to a Franciscan friar, a dog emerges from under the table to snatch pieces of bread on the bench.

The critics Gilbert Highet and Gustav Glück have argued that the groom is the man in the centre of the painting, wearing a dark coat and seen in profile,[5][6] or the ill-bred son of a wealthy couple, seen against the far wall to the right of the bride, eating with a spoon.

[8] According to the same custom, he may also be the man handing the plates of food to his guests from the near end of the table, wearing a red cap.

In a Freudian vein, Rudy Rucker speculates:[10]... the groom is the man in the red hat, passing food towards the bride.

Van der Elst speculated that this could be the depiction of an old Flemish proverb: It is a poor man who is not able to be at his own wedding.