How do I populate a nested field with array of ID to another collection using Mongoose? - mongodb

Question

I have two collections. User and Event. In my Event model, I have an object "attendees" with ("hosting", "pending", "accepted", "declined") that have an array of ObjectId's referencing the User. I am trying to grab a single event and have those populated with User information.
My Event Schema
const EventSchema = new mongoose.Schema(
{
title: {
type: String,
required: true,
},
description: {
type: String,
required: true,
},
eventDate: {
type: Date,
required: true,
},
dateCreated: {
type: Date,
default: Date.now,
},
dateUpdated: {
type: Date,
default: Date.now,
},
attendees: {
hosting: [
{
type: Schema.ObjectId,
ref: "User",
},
],
pending: [
{
type: Schema.ObjectId,
ref: "User",
},
],
accepted: [
{
type: Schema.ObjectId,
ref: "User",
},
],
declined: [
{
type: Schema.ObjectId,
ref: "User",
},
],
},
My User Schema
const UserSchema = new mongoose.Schema(
{
name: {
first: {
type: String,
required: true,
},
last: {
type: String,
required: true,
},
},
phone: {
type: String,
required: true,
},
email: {
type: String,
match: [/^\w+([\.-]?\w+)*#\w+([\.-]?\w+)*(\.\w{2,3})+$/, "Please add a valid email"],
unique: true,
required: true,
},
password: {
type: String,
required: true,
},
pictureUrl: String,
allergies: [String],
preferences: [String],
favoriteRecipes: [String],
events: {
hosting: [
{
type: Schema.ObjectId,
ref: "Event",
},
],
pending: [
{
type: Schema.ObjectId,
ref: "Event",
},
],
accepted: [
{
type: Schema.ObjectId,
ref: "Event",
},
],
declined: [
{
type: Schema.ObjectId,
ref: "Event",
},
],
},
I've looked through a ton of stack overflow and can't find something to help. Maybe I need to change my models? Here is my query:
db.Event.find({})
.populate({
path: "attendees.pending",
model: "User",
})
.exec((err, docs) => {
console.log(docs);
process.exit(0);
});