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Monday, December 29, 2003

SECOND WEDDING WORRIES?

Dear Elise,

OK, here it goes. I was married (on the beach with only my parents and his parents) at 17 to my boyfriend of a year. (I found out I was pregnant, we decided to get married.) Two years into it he was having an affair with his coworker. We divorced and life went on. I am now 22 and engaged and plan to marry in May the week after I graduate from college. Here's my question: Our plans are to be married at a beautiful 1920's home overlooking the water and then have the reception indoors. My daughter will be our flower girl and I have 4 bridesmaids and he has 4 groomsmen. I am wearing an ivory dress and we are having 75 guests. I will not be wearing a veil. My fiance has never been married. Does this sound OK even though it is my second marriage? Most second marriage advice that I read applies to brides that were married for 20 years or more and that are in their forties. I'm just not sure what my guidelines are since I am a second time bride, but still young. I would like to celebrate our marriage but I also do not want people to think that I am being tacky. What do you think?

I appreciate any and all help.

Bride Again

Dear Bride Again,

I'll give this to you straight. You've planned a wedding that sounds very nice indeed. Congratulations.

Now, as to your question, I have to ask one in return. Did anyone, friend or family, imply that you're doing something inappropriate? If so, this happens all the time. There are people in this world who, faced with good news (a wedding, for example) are only too eager to rip open a wound in the happy person and sprinkle salt in it, all in the name of love. These types are everywhere. Ignore them.

A glance back at the annals of etiquette tradition reveals very little about what people (young and old) are expected to do about second weddings. In 1946, Emily Post really had very little to say about second marriages. Her guidelines are really for widows getting remarried, and there she only discourages the wearing of a "bridal veil, orange blossoms, or a myrtle wreath, which are emblems of virginity." This point is interesting, but not useful for you (since the symbolism of veils is hotly debated and only a very few people attend weddings with a copy of "The Language of Flowers" in their pockets). In Emily Post's contemporary edition, the only strict advice given is for the newly engaged woman never to wear a new engagement ring if either member of the wedding couple is still married to someone else. Miss Manners also tends to give coy advice on the second wedding front, basically suggesting that brides not go overboard.

These cautions come not so much out of an urge to punish second-time brides for having made decisions that didn't work out in the past, as it does out of a wish that the past not be entirely forgotten and shunted aside in an effort to do something bigger or more socially flamboyant. The fear is that, in an effort to obliterate and outdo the previous wedding, the sentiment and meaning of the second one will be squashed under excesses of tulle and fondant. Clearly you, in including your daughter in your wedding ceremony, and creating a sensitive event that is important to you and your fiance are not thinking that way at all. You can wear what you like, celebrate where you like, and enjoy yourself with impunity.

There are people, usually the very wealthy or the very famous, who make a habit out of marrying and celebrating every wedding as if it were going to be the last. Some people, I raise my eyebrow here to Jennifer Lopez-types, even call off third (or is it fourth?) weddings in the eleventh hour, having spent enough money to make even Elizabeth Taylor cough. These are not situations you need to take into account. They are confections of self-promotion and have as little to do with the characters of the celebrities or socialites involved or the nature of marriage as they do with whatever movie they are promoting.

The only other thing you might be aware of is this: some people do not feel they should give presents to people getting married for the second time. Emily Post mentions this in her recent edition, and some traditional folks may follow her opinions to the letter. If this happens, try not to take it personally. You will surely be happier in your new life than they are with their noses glued to the nether pages of weighty etiquette volumes.

Cheers and congratulations and Happy New Year,

Elise


posted by Elise at 7:44 AM    <link>

THE PRESENT... IS IN THE MAIL?

Dear Elise,

I was married in July and invited a few out of town friends knowing that they likely wouldn't be able to make it but wanted them to know that in a dream world where flights are cheap and vacation time is plentiful, I would want them there. Two of these friends called me about a week after the wedding to hear the details and offer their congratulations.

Friend #1: Kelly called me at work and went on and on about how she wished she could have been there but due to her job, she couldn't take time off. She then asked for my address because she'd bought us a wedding gift. I gave her the address. Fast forward two months later. I've not received a gift. She calls me at work again, chats for a little while (we've exchanged e-mails since then) and asks for my address again saying she's sorry she hasn't sent the gift but life has been crazy. Now it's December. No gift, but I've received a Christmas card with a short "Keep in touch" message and no mention of any gift or wedding or anything.

Friend 2: Rebecca is an older work friend and she called me at home and we talked about the wedding for a while and then she asked for my address so she could send a gift. A few weeks later I get an e-mail from her saying that she's sorry she hasn't bought me a gift yet--where did I register again? Fast-forward to now--a Christmas card arrives in the mail.

I am not deluded enough to really believe that they might have sent a gift that got lost in the mail--but what if they did? The curt message from Kelly's card makes me wonder if she's offended about something. Like did she send a gift and she's angry I never acknowledged it?

It's strange because I would have never expected a gift from either of them--the calls were a sweet gesture. But I just find it strange to tell someone you bought him or her something and then never acknowledge it again.

Has anyone else dealt with this?

Still Waiting

Dear Waiting,

Your letter reminded me of a conversation I had recently, in which a friend described to me the difficulty she had identifying some of the presents she had received for her wedding. One box revealed something that was either a piece of art or a trivet, and the accompanying note didn't give any hints. Someone else I know got a mystery present that a friend decided resembled nothing other than a condom holder.

I mention these incidents of baffling presents that successfully arrived to illustrate a fundamental principal of wedding gifts: they are utterly beyond your control. You can tell people what you'd like to receive and you can sign up for gift registries but that's about as far as you can go without creating discomfort. Beyond that, people will do as they please.

In short, wedding presents are like weather: you will certainly get some. They may not be what you like or want, but the good ones will come as happy bonuses and the bad or weird ones will never cause disaster.

So, are your friends rude for promising wedding presents but never sending them? They're being odd and a bit flakey, certainly, but I don't think it is worth taxing your friendships over. Remember, even when people attend weddings, they are not required (rather, strongly encouraged) to give presents. People can be very strange about gift-giving generally: some prefer to give presents in person, others are reluctant to go to the post office, and many are forgetful. Someone very close to me has been known to put off sending baby presents for so long that the gift has wound up going to the family's second child.

It probably isn't worth pursuing these errant presents, unless you feel that by promising and then not sending something your friends are making statements about your relationships that worry you. If that is the case, I of course think you could ask if everything is all right, but I would leave the issue of wedding gifts aside. Is it worth it, after all, to complicate a friendship over a piece of china, some napkin rings, or something completely unidentifiable? My own selfish preference: I would always prefer a willing ear when I'm having a Dark Night of the Soul. I see that there is a discussion of this very topic in Kvetch right now, and I know more than one recent bride is sharing this confusing experience. So take heart, you are not alone.

Cheers,

Elise


posted by Elise at 9:41 AM    <link>

REGISTRY WOES

Dear Elise,

I'm getting married in... whoops, exactly eight months... and I've been thinking about the registry thang. My future husband and I will soon be buying a house to live in with his very ill mother (so that we can better take care of her) and will need a down payment. I know everyone talks about how tacky it is to ask for money, but, well, we don't really need anything else, and the wedding is going to be using up most of what we have saved up at the moment (downpayment money)! Is there a good way of asking for money, or shall we just give up on getting the one thing we will need?

Money Matters

Dear Matters,

The whole snarl of issues that concern wedding presents, the giving of them and the asking for them, is enough to make brave women shudder. The unpleasant intersection of the Wedding Industry with the genuine desire to give presents, the politics of asking for specific things, and the enormous variety of feelings that stem from culture and tradition, make it extremely difficult to distinguish what is reasonable from what is not.

That said, I don't think I can provide you with the answer you would most like to hear, in spite of how noble your wishes are. In the most ancient, strictly observed etiquette traditions, it would have been considered rude to request any presents at all. Presents are supposed to be given freely by the givers, not selected by the receivers. Now, this is far from the case today where brides and grooms are expected to register at a well-known store or two for things they want. (This is an enormous relief to those of us who are indecisive and afraid of giving presents that people already have.) But your situation is especially delicate because you would be asking for money, something that is notoriously, even epically, hard to do delicately.

There are some communities that get around the discomfort of asking for money by incorporating cash presents into wedding traditions (the "dollar dance," the "cash fountain," the "money bag," etc. all of which encourage guests to give envelopes of money to the wedding couple in lieu of, or in addition to presents). But there are also many, many people who feel cash is an impersonal present and won't even consider it. (Of course, there are also people who will quibble no matter what sort of presents are suggested. I knew someone who thought she had covered her bases by registering at a large, deluxe housewares store that has an easy-to-use web site, but who still was told by a number of people that they would not use the registry because kitchen appliances were too "informal.") People give the presents they want to give for reasons only their therapists can explain- if they were legally permitted to talk about it.

So, what can you do to politely let people know you need cash? It's tricky, but you could try simply not registering anywhere and when people ask, you can explain that what you really need is money for the house. This would create a lot of uncomfortable conversations for you, but if you think you can handle it, that is the only way I can imagine getting the word out with a modicum of tact. I know some people include registry and present information in wedding invitations, but I think this is not a good idea. There is something unpleasantly mercenary about receiving requests for presents or donations in invitations. This is a wedding, not a benefit dinner. For a discussion of this issue, check out the "Is this really tacky? Be honest now." thread on Kvetch. Another Indiebride source you might look at is the section on Kvetch called "Alternatives to Registering." I know people have discussed web sites that allow people to register for honeymoon donations, but generally people feel uncomfortable with the idea of making money the focus of wedding presents.

The problem you are facing is that not only does traditional and contemporary etiquette not endorse financial solicitations, most people generally feel very uncomfortable about being asked for money. You may find that the weird feelings created by making your wedding into a financial issue generate problems, emotional distance, and unhappiness that you could regret.

Frankly, I think you would be best off taking a step back and looking at your resources. Do you need to spend most of your house money on your wedding, or can you reimagine some elements and scale things down so that you have more cash left over for the down payment? Since you have eight months to go, it wouldn't be impossible to rework the wedding and reception, and I don't think anyone would begrudge you any economies, knowing what financial and familial obstacles you are up against. This would leave you more of the cash you already have for your larger goals.

Good luck. You have plenty of time. I can imagine how you feel, but I think you would do yourself a disservice by turning your wedding into too much of a financial affair.

Cheers,

Elise


posted by Elise at 8:48 AM    <link>

THE QUESTION OF KIDS
2 Questions

Dear Elise,

My fiance and I plan to marry in the Caribbean next summer. We will be inviting immediate family only. When we return from the Caribbean, we plan to have a large reception where all of our friends and family will be invited and we will play a video of the ceremony. We are concerned about just one thing surrounding the ceremony: his brother and sister-in-law have a baby and we intend for this to be an "adult only" wedding weekend. How can we politely tell them that they are welcome to join us, but cannot bring their baby? If they are unable to leave their child for a few days, we would completely understand if they could not attend our ceremony. They can certainly attend the reception instead. My fiance' anticipates a rather negative reaction from his brother and
sister-in-law and frankly, so do I. Nevertheless, we are firm on this decision. Any suggestions on how best to deal with this potential aggravation?

Thank you in advance for any advice you can provide.

Kidless in the Caribbean

Dear Kidless-

You have just hit upon one of the touchiest, most squirm-inducing problems of guest list planning: how not to invite children to your wedding if you don't want them. While people will debate endlessly whether or not it is "right" to exclude kids, the bottom line is that this decision is really up to the wedding couple, and no one should try to convince them otherwise.

Really, any choice you make is fine as long as you make sure of one thing: you must be consistent. The only reasonable way to limit or exclude children to be draconian about it. Some people decide on having no children at all, others only invite the children of immediate family (nieces, nephews, much younger siblings, etc.), but the one thing you can not do is allow one cousin to come and not the others, or invite a favorite child of a close friend while excluding other children of relatives.

It doesn't sound like this is your problem, though. You don't mention this, but are there other young nieces and nephews you are also not inviting? If so, it would be much easier for you to tell your fiance's brother and sister-in-law that you are not inviting anyone's children to the Caribbean, that they are welcome to attend the reception with their kid, and that you would completely understand if they felt they could not leave town without their baby. If theirs is the only child around, then you might find yourselves having to listen to some lamentations and complaints. There is no way around this, I'm afraid.

As long as you are nice about it and consistent, you are doing nothing wrong from an etiquette standpoint. That said, people feel very strongly about their children, and even reasonable-seeming folks will jump to extreme conclusions when they hear you would prefer that they not bring their children to your wedding. I know that you don't want any kids present, but they may hear that you don't what their kids around, so prepare yourself to hear variations on: "Why don't you like Billy? Do you hate kids?" The only answer to this is, again, simply to be firm, repeat the invitation to the reception, and here you can say how much you would like to see the baby there (it is perfect, by the way, that you have a "kids welcome" event you can offer them), and enjoy yourselves with or without them.

Good luck,

Elise

Dear Elise,

I'm trying desperately for money's sake to keep my wedding small. One way I want to do this is by excluding children of friends and distant family. First, is this terribly rude? If so, is there any way to do this politely? Say, just put the adult's names on the invitation and hope they get the hint?

Two examples: My fiance's friend: He and his wife have six children, ranging from age 2 - 14. I've never even met the wife, but have heard the kids shrieking in the background when I've spoken to the friend on the phone. My mother's cousin: She and her husband have a son who I haven't seen since I was five, and he is now my age. Does he have to be included?

It seems false since it's not like we have a relationship, but I don't want to offend my mom's cousin.

Thank you for your thoughts!
Best regards,

Too Many Children

Dear Too Many,

As you can see from my response to Kidless in the Caribbean, deciding not to have children at a wedding is not at all rude. It is simply your decision and your prerogative. So, put yourself at ease that your concerns are not unreasonable.

The best way to handle invitations is to address them only to the people you actually want to attend. If you are using RSVP cards, guests should send them back indicating how many of them will be attending (there are numerous formats for RSVP cards, be careful to choose one where people must say how many of their party will come, not just "yes" or "no"). Here is where you may face some stickiness. If you get a card back that (using the example of your fiance's friend) suggests 8 people will be attending your wedding, you or your fiance will have to call these friends and say that you can't accommodate the children. This is difficult, I know, but there's no way around it.

I suspect your problem may come from a different area. One thing you will not be able to do is select which children are invited to your wedding. There is too much opportunity for hurt feelings. You and your fiance will be best off if you pick one of the Policies of Consistency I mentioned above: no children at all or only children of immediate family. This may mean you have to exclude some children of friends, but inviting some kids of friends and not others will really breed all kinds of resentment.

I think the case of your mother's cousin's son differs from the standard "do I invite kids or not" question. Since you're talking about someone who is actually an adult, it is difficult to include him under the umbrella category of "child," which is not to say you have to invite him. Families have their own rules about invitation obligations, and if you're concerned about whether or not to invite this man, I think it would be easiest for you to talk to your mother. If you really haven't seen him since you were in kindergarten, then your family will probably not feel it is necessary to invite him.

In any case, please don't let anyone try to bully you into including children if you don't want to for any reason. It does not mean you hate kids (although you might), it does not mean you don't like specific children (although you might), it merely means you have made a choice about how you want your wedding and reception to be. That said, you will have to be prepared for some people not to be able to come if they can't find childcare, can't travel, don't want to travel, or don't like to do things without their children. The only real obligation on everyone's part is to be nice and gracious about the invitation and not let any hard feelings get in the way of a happy occasion.


Cheers,

Elise

posted by Elise at 10:02 AM    <link>

TABLE TROUBLE

Dear Elise,

How do I handle seating this family arrangement at the reception?

My fiance and I would like to have what they call a "sweetheart table" at the reception, with just the two of us. How do we handle the parent situation? My parents are still happily married and can "host" a table with my brothers and other immediate family, but his parents divorced and both remarried happily many years ago. His biological father's second wife passed away one year ago. Are there some creative ideas on how to handle this?

I normally would think of having three tables, each hosted by a set of parents: My mom and dad, his mom and stepdad, and his father and...? He will be invited to bring a guest but may or may not do so. My fiance's mother and stepdad raised the three kids, and while everyone gets along OK, no one really wants to sit with the father; they are all closer to mom and stepdadad. I don't like the idea of having this man host a table alone with no other family members, with all three of his children at the table with his ex-wife and her second husband. So my basic question is this: who from my fiance's family can I ask to sit at the table with the father, without making them feel like "they got stuck with father," and without the father feeling like no one wants to sit with him? My fiance's one brother will be his best man, and his son and wife will be there. We might be able to have my fiance's sister and her boyfriend with mother, and his brother and son/wife sit with father. Could I create a third table with a mixture of some of my relatives, my maid of honor and her parents (who are extremely close friends and hosting the breakfast the next day), and my fiance's father? Help.
Thanks,

Tricky Tables

Dear Tricky,

Congratulations, you are already way ahead of the wedding seating game, which is as delicate and rewarding as memorizing the new tax laws.

Depending on the size of your wedding, you have a lot of options, and your instincts are all right on target. The only thing you really do not want to do is seat your fiance's biological mother and father, even if they are friendly and cordial, at the same table. Since you're not even entertaining that thought, you're in the clear, especially since you're not planning on a more standard "head table."

There is nothing at all wrong with the plan you outlined. It does sound, however, as if it is making you nervous because you can't predict how your fiance's brother, wife and son will feel about sitting with his father and you don't want resentments and hurt feelings to show up on such a happy occasion.

Perhaps you would feel more comfortable if you took an entirely different approach to seating. You can experiment with all kinds of arrangements and see what works well for you. It may help if you thought of the tables as needing "anchors," rather than "hosts." "Host" implies that you would like that person to take on some entertaining responsibilities, whereas "anchor" is only of a private signifier for you. If you pick "anchors" for all of the tables and build groups of guests around those "anchors," picking people you think would enjoy each other's company for the evening, figuring out the seating assignments will be a lot less arbitrary and confusing for you.

To this end, I would suggest splitting up the families even more than you had planned to do. Try dividing everyone into couples and then experiment with spreading the family twosomes around, one couple (your parents, your fiance's mother and step-father, each sibling and his/her spouse, your fiance's father and his date) per table, and then fit in friends and other relatives around your anchor people. This will ensure good mingling and will keep all family tensions at least somewhat at bay. Even if your father-in-law-to-be does not bring a date, you will be safe in this situation, particularly if you add some great people, like your maid of honor and her parents, to the mix at his table.

This is just one suggestion and you can, of course, invent any kind of seating arrangement you like, but I think the best way to protect everyone's feelings is to organize your guests in such a way that no one feels there is a special "inner circle" from which he (or she) has been excluded. It's tricky. A close friend says that the most heated battles she has ever had with her father happened over the bulletin board of projected seating arrangements that haunted her family's otherwise cozy living room for weeks before the wedding.

Take heart. Your intentions are brave and good, and with a little ingenuity you will safely tiptoe through this minefield.

Cheers,

Elise



posted by Elise at 3:45 PM    <link>

MATERNAL TWITCHING

Dear Elise,

My boyfriend has a complicated set of friends, which includes several of his ex-girlfriends. One complicated scenario is that my boyfriend's best friend recently had a baby with one my boyfriend's ex-girlfriends, and this caused quite a lot of emotional Sturm and Dreck for a while, in all of our lives. (To give you an idea of the dynamics of the situation, the pregnancy happened after 3 months of casual dating- and while most of their friends were told right away- mutual friends actually told my boyfriend before he heard about it from the couple themselves (it took them 4 months more to 'fess up, so you can tell that there are still funky emotions involved all around).

To make it even more complicated and ridiculous, they decided to make my boyfriend their baby's godparent. No tangled emotions there. So not only is it a strange and occasionally strained relationship, he's now emotionally and ethically bound to them forever. And as you imagine, I couldn't be happier to be in the midst.

Now, when the baby was christened my boyfriend flew out west for the ceremony. His mother, who has known the baby's father and the ex-girlfriend for years, was not invited to the christening. She attended anyway, because she was extremely proud of her son and wanted to witness a moment that she found very meaningful. The baby's parents were apparently annoyed by her presence and said this outright to my boyfriend. My boyfriend has gone above and beyond the "call of duty" and established a college fund for the child, and sends gifts for the child frequently. I think it was well within his right to take his mom to the christening, rather than to go alone to a potentially awkward event.

Now, 11 months later, the baby's parents are getting married. Due to a genuine scheduling conflict (and the fact that they sent out their invitations 3 weeks in advance) we're not flying cross-country to attend the wedding. The extra kick in the pants this time is that the happy couple called to ask *us* to invite my boyfriend's mother to the ceremony- and since mom lives in the same town as the bride and groom she will likely attend, no matter how last-minute the invitation.

What gives? She is considered an intrusion in a ceremony where her son has a starring role, but now that there's going to be another ceremony in which people bring big, expensive gifts for the happy couple, she's welcome to attend? And what, they can't use the white pages to look up her (listed) address and send a proper invitation? I think that this entire situation is a three-ring circus, and that the bride and groom have displayed bad manners right from the beginning. When I expressed my shock at their nerve, my boyfriend brushed it off with a shrug. He passed on the info to his mother, and she is planning to attend. I'm not getting more in the middle of this one, but can you please tell me if I'm off base to think the invitation is inappropriate and in bad taste?

I assure you sadly that all above are true anecdotes. I'm eloping if it ever comes to the "Big Day".

- Puzzled and Perplexed primarily in Pennsylvania

Dear PPPP-

True or not, your tale provides ample etiquette issues to examine, but I do have to say that I think your feelings of discomfort and outrage are exacerbated by your closeness to the situation. If your boyfriend's best friend and his wife, your boyfriend's ex-girlfriend, were not quite so burdened with baggage, your discomfort would, in all likelihood, be much less substantial. Your boyfriend is being incredibly good to this couple and their child. A college fund, already? That is extremely generous and it would be quite natural for you to feel a bit strange about this quasi-familial connection to his ex-girlfriend's child.

That said, there are really two etiquette questions here, and I'm not sure I have the answers you were hoping for. I do not think it was a good idea for your boyfriend's mother to crash the christening. It is never wise to attend anything but the most casual of events uninvited. You don't mention this, but did your boyfriend ask his friends if he could bring his mother along, or did they just decide on their own to attend the event together? If the couple in fact indicated that they did not want your boyfriend's mother at the christening, it is completely understandable that they would be annoyed. If they didn't know she was coming, they might have been uncomfortable or irritated that she came without having been asked to attend. Anyone who has struggled with invitation lists can imagine how off-putting it would be to have people just show up to a carefully planned event, especially people with whom there might be some serious discomfort. Perhaps it is because your boyfriend's mother knows the best friend and ex-girlfriend so well, and is so familiar with their histories with her son that they felt uncomfortable about having her at the christening.

As far as the subsequent wedding goes, I suspect your boyfriend's friends are trying clumsily to apologize for acting so weird towards his mother at the christening. While an astonishing number of people really do seem incapable of looking up addresses or calling telephone information for help, it seems that they could also have been trying to let you and your boyfriend know that they were going to invite her and that they really do want her to be there. Now that she has been invited, if she wants to attend, she should, and as far as presents go, she should just apply the suggestions mentioned in the IndieEtiquette column from November 7, 2003, "Paying for Plates," and give them something within her means and interests.

Now, you don’t have any obligations to this wedding. You and your boyfriend aren't even required to have a good excuse for not going to the wedding ("I'm sorry, we can't make it" is more than adequate), and they are out of line if they snark at you. Again, if you feel like giving a present, by all means send them something, but if you feel that is too much, perhaps a card wishing them well will do the trick for you.

Your feelings that the whole business is a "three ring circus" are reasonable, but not as much from an etiquette point of view as from a natural defensiveness that can happen when one's significant other's past lives catch up with you and threaten to intrude.

Give yourself as much distance as you need and be glad you can view these things with an amused detachment instead of intense investment.

Cheers,

Elise


posted by Elise at 12:08 PM    <link>

SAME TIME / NEW PLACE

Dear Elise-

We are getting married June 2004. We have already reserved a resort-type place in the mountains where every guest will have to travel to stay for a weekend celebration. We've already sent out "save-the-dates" (with the location listed) and created a website that outlines the weekend's activities. One guest (my mother) has already sent in a deposit.

The resort just published their new accommodations rates for next year and we believe the increase was dramatic and now makes it out of our acceptable range for guests. The resort has negotiated with us a bit and agreed to give us a slight discount. We began discussing whether we should cancel our reservation- according to our contract, it appears that at this point in the game, we can recoup all deposits. During these "discussions", we also discovered that we might be happier having the wedding where we live now- we moved recently, have some new friends, new neighbors, new coworkers, etc that we'd like to include in our guest list, but we're at our max at the mountain resort. Also, having it local would be easier on our in-town guests.

So... my etiquette questions are: Is it tacky to change the venue once we've already publicized the resort? What's the best way to let guests know if we do? And can we blame it on the resort for raising their rates when it's partly our change of heart too?

Thank you!
Staying Home

Dear Staying Home,

When you're dealing with all things wedding related, you will make yourself much more comfortable if you try to stop thinking of things in terms of what is "tacky" or not. It is a word destined to make one feel bad about oneself, and why tread on territory that one's relatives are so good at?

It is not tacky to change your venue, at worst it is indecisive, and changing your mind about something is far from sinful. It also sounds like your decision will make you much more relaxed and happy and that can only be a good thing.

The important element for you right now is time. You need to get the word out as fast as possible, first to the venue and then to your guests, that your plans have changed. You should call the resort and talk to the people who have been handling your event and explain your position. Don't email or fax your cancellation, as tempting as it is to deliver the news in a one-sided way. The resort staff will be grateful if you talk to them personally and thank them for working with you on trying to make the event financially feasible for you and your guests, even though new prices won't work for you.

After that, you want to make sure that your guests don't purchase unnecessary plane tickets, so if your guest list is short enough, I think you'd be safest calling or emailing everyone. If that is overwhelming, you certainly can get some "change of venue" cards printed up and send them out, but in the interests of getting your information out quickly, I would recommend the direct approach.

(If you're a stickler for tradition, and have the uneasy sense that calling people is too informal, put your fears to rest. Even Emily Post advises people to call guests with wedding changes, postponements, or cancellations if time is an issue.)

Finally, you ask if you can blame the change on the resort, but really, you shouldn't have to feel guilty or embarrassed about this and you shouldn't need to blame any one at all for anything. You changed your mind, and only a very few people (you, your fiance, and your mother) have even been slightly inconvenienced by this shift of desires. I think, really for the sake of good karma, that you should just say that your plans have changed. If pressed, you can of course say that your ideas for an expanded wedding didn't work with the new, much higher, prices of the resort, but why spread any hard feelings about a place that did try (a little) to be accommodating? Save your energy. There will be plenty of opportunities for you to exercise your temper as the wedding day draws closer.

Congratulations, good luck, and hold your head high. Ancient adages even tell us that changing her mind is a "woman's privilege."

Cheers,

Elise

posted by Elise at 1:57 PM    <link>

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