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Thursday, April 29, 2004

MULTIPLE MAIDS

Dear Elise,

I have always wanted my sister to be my maid of honor. We are very close, but we live in separate states and my best friend has really been doing a great job planning showers, picking dresses, etc, in short acting as my maid of honor.

When I finally do get married I want my best friend to get the credit she deserves for her hard work. My sister is a big girl but she will probably feel a little strange about not being the one to stand beside me. I had thought to have my sister sign our marriage certificate as a witness instead of my friend or visa versa, but so far I have made no decision yet as to which of these wonderful people should get the designation (on our web site I simply have them both called bridesmaids with my sister listed first because she is family). Do you have any advice or other ideas on how to strike a nice balance?

Thanks so much,

- Multiple Maids

Dear Multiple,

How refreshing to get a question involving an excess of support. As I have written before, there are very few traditional "rules" of etiquette for bridesmaids or maids of honor, so this is one of the few areas where you can suit yourself. Take advantage of this freedom.

Be inclusive, reject limitations, invent your own wedding party or dispense with it entirely. You could have two maids or matrons (what an unpleasant word) of honor. This isn't unusual at all and no one would even think you were being avant-garde. In a different spirit, you could name no maid of honor and have an undifferentiated group of bridesmaids (as you do on your web site), or you could have no bridesmaids at all and allot different honors (signing your marriage certificate, for example) to your friend and sister. If you want to publicly recognize your friend's help and support, you could always give a toast thanking her. It comes down to how you feel about titles and how attached you are to the familiar structures we tend to see at weddings.

While I suspect you would prefer not to have to choose between these women, you may feel obliged to, for the sake of tradition or family influence, or some other reason known only to you. If you must choose, know that you can't go wrong, but also understand that if this is a decision you don't want to make, you don't have to. There are so many traditions and formalities with weddings that too often people feel they're on a roller coaster and don't realize they can always get off and take a different, more comfortable ride.

Congratulations,

Elise

posted by Elise at 11:08 AM    <link>

SO MUCH SCHEDULING
-or-
REALLY? A TAKER FOR THE NAPKIN RINGS?

Dear Elise,

My fiance and I got engaged in January of 2002. A couple of months later, he was stationed out of state and we put off the wedding until his return, which has been scheduled for October 12, 2004. We are having a difficult time deciding on a wedding day. October 12 has been a day we have been looking forward to for 2 years, and we are thinking of marrying then, even though it falls on a Tuesday. Will this be all right for people who live out of town? Will people be let down if all we do is have a simple ceremony and dinner at a restaurant we love (no dancing or anything extra)?

We're also considering having a casual, backyard homecoming/ reception the following weekend for everyone we couldn't invite (or who couldn't come) to the weeknight ceremony. Would guests feel slighted if they were invited to the party and not the ceremony? Do we invite those guests to the shower, or just the ones who are invited to Tuesday night?

Also, the guest list is ballooning. Is there any way we can invite our favorite uncles and exclude the others, or invite a coworker and not a boss? Friends graciously threw us an engagement party in February of 2002. We haven't spoken to some of the guests since. I know you are supposed to invite all your engagement party guests to the wedding, but are there exceptions? We are definitely inviting the friends who threw it, and their parents who hosted it, but what about the others? The hosts' other daughter and her boyfriend were at our engagement party, and they subsequently married and invited me to the wedding (I attended). But we don't really know them and would have no reason to invite them to our wedding. What should we do?

Thank you for your help! OH and I LOVE napkin rings.

- Two Steps From Overwhelmed

Dear Two Steps,

Don't say you're overwhelmed now; you'll only feel foolish in September when you realize the extreme highs and lows of wedding planning.

If you're attached to October 12th as a wedding day, embrace it. Many people come up with much more arbitrary reasons for choosing their wedding date. You will, of course, need to take into account the obvious legal issues. If your fiance gets home on the 12th, you and he will still need a license and in many states there is a 24-hour waiting period. Before you go too far in planning, check to make sure you'll actually be able to get married on your ideal day.

As far as a Tuesday wedding goes, you are under no obligation to supply your guests with a carnival or multi-day party. A ceremony and a dinner is a perfect event, and no one with a civil tongue in his or her head would quibble about it. That said, if you have the weekend party a mere four days after the ceremony, you will have to be discreet about the guest list to the ceremony and dinner part of your celebration. Because the two parties are temporally quite close together, you may want to limit your Tuesday guest list to immediate family and friends. If you tell people you're only having a very small ceremony, no one will feel left out. Conversely, if you have large overlapping groups to both the Tuesday and weekend events, people will wonder why they didn't make the cut for the ceremony. Really, the key to all of this is how you present and control the information about the two parts of your wedding. This holds for the shower question as well. If your ceremony is very small, you can invite the guests from the larger party to your shower. If the ceremony and dinner crowd is very large, or extends way beyond immediate family and isolated friends, you're treading on thin-ish ice.

Guest lists are impossible, really, so resign yourself to some guilt. The only cardinal rule, and I've mentioned it before in the context of child exclusion, is this: Be Consistent. If you invite one uncle, you really have to invite all of the parents' siblings. Your coworker / employer issue is different. As long as you aren't ostentatious about your plans, and don't invite the entire department while obviously excluding your boss, you do not necessarily have to invite him or her. Consider this when you try to decide who to invite from your engagement party. Traditionally, you should include everyone you invited, but it was a very long time ago, and in this case you don't necessarily have to include everyone. However, in the case of your hosts' daughter whose wedding you attended, she and her husband do merit an invitation. You have been close to her family and regardless of your lack of communication recently, it would be a gracious gesture to make.

Congratulations, best of luck, and the napkin rings are yours if you send me your address. Whew.

- Elise

posted by Elise at 10:22 AM    <link>

RSVP TRUANCY

Dear Elise,

My aunt and cousin are throwing a bridal shower for me next month. The invites went out and the R.s.v.p. date is about to arrive. My aunt gave me a list of people who have not yet R.s.v.p'd and would like to me to contact them to see if they are coming, so she can start planning the food, etc. Isn't it her job to contact them? I feel really awkward having to ask people, "Are you coming to my shower?" I really do not want to be a brat, but if you throw someone a shower, aren't you supposed to take care of those things for the bride? She also did not send directions with the invites and has now asked me to reply to guests who called her for directions.

Thanks,

Confused


Dear Confused,

The biggest drag about throwing parties has nothing to do with planning and everything to do with people's endless vicissitudes. It turns the fun into leaden chores. It is awful when people don't R.s.v.p.; it makes one feel rather unloved (even if one knows one's friends are just being lazy).

You're right. Generally, it is up to the host(s) to find out the intentions of their potential guests. Your aunt, in this case, seems reluctant to investigate, perhaps because she doesn't know all of the potential guests and feels uncomfortable calling or writing to strangers.

Now that you know you're right, what are you going to do? Since she asked you to follow up, it would be hard to put the job back in your aunt's lap. You risk alienating her (especially since she's going to some trouble for you) or, worse, getting into an argument over a point of etiquette. These should be avoided at all costs, always. We tell small children that correcting other people's grammar makes them insufferable, and it is the same way with etiquette lessons. (Grammar is one of those things that will dog me forever. Every time someone replaces a perfectly good "me" with "I," I die a little, but I keep it to myself.)

In this case you should let it go. These are uncomfortable calls to make, I know, but perhaps you can follow up with your guests in email, which gives you some distance. As for people requesting directions, you're probably stuck with that one, too, though again, if you can write up a quick "form letter" email, you'll get through it more easily. When you speak to your aunt, perhaps you can gently encourage her to go ahead and provide directions to anyone who needs them in the future, since she would best know any alternate routes to her house.

I sympathize. Tracking down R.s.v.p. truants isn't something destined to make you jolly, but just imagine you're doing your aunt a favor and keeping her from being overwhelmed. Pitching a party is plenty of work, with or without inept invitees.

Congratulations,

Elise


posted by Elise at 9:59 AM    <link>

MOTHER OF THE BRIDE VS. FUTURE GROOM

Dear Elise,

I have what is rapidly becoming an untenable situation. My daughter and her fiance are graduate students living off school loans. We offered to give them a wedding and reception at our home, which we feel will be generous but not ostentatious.

My daughter accepted; her fiance did not. He informed us that if we don't have a sit-down dinner, his family won't come. (I do not want to have a sit-down dinner because I won't be able to afford all the things he demands. I know that the party I have in mind will be tasteful and comfortable.) The groom says that if we don't pay for the wedding he demands, his family will, regardless of my comfort with their decisions.

My daughter and her fiance have also decided to get married at their college, saying this arrangement "inconveniences everyone equally.” I think they just want to have the event far away from her hometown, which actually inconveniences everyone in her family but has no impact on his.

Is it proper for the groom’s family to offer to pay for the wedding and reception if the bride’s family can't afford what the groom wants? If the groom's family provides the “happy couple” with the money to do what they want, will we become mere guests, deprived of the opportunity to invite our family and friends to the wedding and reception?

I wanted to throw a lovely, simple wedding, but I feel I'm in a hornet's nest.

- Frightened Mother

Dear Frightened,

I get the sense this wedding is making you feel like Barbara Stanwyck in Stella Dallas (1937) - forced to watch her daughter's wedding through a window, excluded from the festivities. Watch the picture if you want to witness transcendent maternal suffering, but understand that you don't have to live the melodrama. Comedies are the stories that more famously end with weddings.

You've got a few personal things going on, but you're also being dragged down by a misunderstanding of traditional etiquette, and the fact that this tradition has almost gone the way of the Dodo. Everyone from Lillian Eichler in 1924 to Emily Post in 1946 says emphatically that, barring terribly unusual circumstances, the bride's family must host (and pay for) the wedding. Ms. Post even puts a headline over her paragraphs on this subject: "BREACH OF ETIQUETTE FOR BRIDEGROOM TO GIVE WEDDING." The poor woman has probably been doing subterranean cartwheels, since it is now more common for weddings to be paid for by all relevant parties, or the bride and groom alone. So, if all this were happening 100 years ago, your daughter's fiance would be entirely in the wrong. As it is, he's just a little controlling and rude.

Your gesture was extremely generous. Throwing a wedding at one's home is not for the faint of heart, so cheers to you for wanting to give it a shot. But your wonderful offer is just that: an offer. Your daughter and her boyfriend should be thankful for it, but they are not required to take you up on it. (It sounds, however, as if the groom-to-be at least, could use a kick in the pants when it comes to expressions of gratitude.) If they have other things in mind (a wedding on campus, a sit-down dinner) they are entitled to plan the kind of wedding they want to have. It is hard not to take this as a rejection, and your daughter's fiance's odd threats are indeed unpleasant, but you don't have to host the whole affair to make significant contributions that demonstrate your sensibilities. Even at the out-of-town wedding you could help with your daughter's dress, flowers, cake, or any other elements you prefer.

You are your daughter's mother regardless of who hosts the event. Even if the groom's family pays for the whole thing, you can invite family and friends. The key is for you to talk frankly with your daughter. Find out what she is planning; ask directly how many people you can invite and find a way to accommodate your needs and hers. Even in the days where it was common for the bride's family to pay for everything, the groom's parents were absolutely entitled to invite guests.

At bottom, you should speak to your daughter. A tricky dynamic is fermenting in your relationship with your son-in-law-to-be, and it would be best to catch it quickly. He may not mean to make you feel inferior, so give him the benefit of the doubt. Since there is no real "right" or "wrong" way to have a wedding, excepting my golden rule that people should treat one another well, keep an open mind and be prepared to negotiate a little.

Good luck,

Elise


posted by Elise at 6:11 PM    <link>

COUSINS WANT TO PARTY

Dear Elise,

My fiance and I are having what we consider to be a very large wedding (180 people invited). Even so, we have not been able, nor have we wanted, to include my parents' numerous cousins. This is not a problem for either of my parents, who have politely explained the situation. However, my aunt recently asked if she could throw a party for the cousins on her side who are not invited. The suggestion makes me very uncomfortable, but I know she wants to do this as a gesture toward me, rather than toward the cousins, and I would feel bad about refusing her offer. Really, there are two questions here: is it kosher to have a B-list party, and is it okay to say no to my sweet, generous, supportive aunt. And which is worse?

-Looking For the Lesser of Evils

Dear Looking,

I'm going to ask you a trick question: how many parties can you handle? The answer to your question depends on your answer to mine.

Let me unravel this. You are in good shape: your family gets along well, your cousins understand your guest list constraints, and this is not a shower situation. Your extended family sincerely wants to celebrate your happiness with you. Now, what do you want to do?

You would be in much murkier waters if this proposed party were a shower (and if you look back at the questions from January 21, February 22, and March 4 you'll see why showers are so particularly tricky). As it is, this proposed event is not so unusual. People often get married and have subsequent receptions in their hometowns (destination weddings seem to trigger whole strings of post-wedding fetes). So, if you are not partied-out and want to please your aunt, it would certainly be fine to have the party. The event might be less guilt-inducing if you schedule it after your wedding, or even after your honeymoon. Your bash would take on a bit of a family reunion air that would mitigate your wedding issues.

As for which of the evils is worst, I think you can guess the answer to this better than I can. Would it hurt your aunt's feelings to reject her offer? How important is this gesture to your aunt? Once you weigh her feelings, you'll be able to make your decision. Just know that party or no party your choice is safe either way.

Congratulations,

Elise



posted by Elise at 7:34 PM    <link>

TRICKY TAKE OUT

Dear Elise,

My almost-husband and I are getting married in a matter of weeks! We started planning the rehearsal dinner, and we’re thinking of just getting takeout from our favorite Chinese restaurant – the same restaurant where he took me on our first date. He wants to ask everyone who is going to be at the rehearsal (about 30+ people) what they would like to eat. I want to just get a lot of several different things, because asking for orders seems like it would end up being as complicated and costly as securing a room in the restaurant and buying everyone his or her own plate.

What’s your advice? Do restaurants usually charge you to ‘rent’ an area of the restaurant for a rehearsal? Would we need to pick just a few items off the menu for people to choose from? Is it rude not to ask people what they’d like for takeout? Do I need to find out if someone just really, really hates Chinese food? Since the ceremony/reception site is 30 minutes away from us, would it be rude to ask people to drive all that way, then back into town for dinner, too? Do you think it would work to eat dinner or takeout before actually rehearsing?

We both want this to be a pleasant, celebratory evening that we can spend with our loved ones before starting something that will change our lives, and also a time that our friends and families who haven’t met to get to know one another…so I don’t want to be stressing over money, but I also don’t want anyone to be annoyed because we didn’t buy enough chow mein.

Sincerely,

Muddling Over Menus

Dear Muddling,

Your question actually has more to do with energy than etiquette. The rehearsal dinner is really just a party, and while you can doll it up with personal traditions, special cakes, and whatnot, all you are really obliged to do is feed everyone.

How much work do you want to do? If you take out, getting a menu to thirty people and securing individual orders will be exhausting and leave you open to all kinds of waffling on the part of your guests. Your fiance is well intentioned, but I suspect he has not quite thought through the implications of his plan. My feeling, and again this is merely an opinion about practicality not propriety, is that you are on the right track: order a wide range of dishes and make sure you have plenty of food for everyone (it is horribly uncomfortable to be at a table of hungry people, all of whom are too shy to grab the last forelorn, but tasty, spare rib).

It's your choice whether you go to the restaurant or take out. As always, there are trade-offs. With take out, it's your party to clean up, but you may save a little money (especially on drinks). Restaurants are usually happy to put together a party-specific menu for you if you don't want to deal with having your guests ordering individually.

As for your travel and time issues, nothing you have planned has the slightest taint of rudeness. As long as you let your guests know when and where to be places, no one should have a problem with any scenario you choose.

Congratulations, have a wonderful meal and a wonderful wedding.

Elise



posted by Elise at 10:11 AM    <link>

SPENDTHRIFT BRIDE

Dear Elise,

My best friend is getting married in October and has asked me to be in her wedding. I am the only bridesmaid that lives anywhere near her, so I have had the "pleasure" of trying on countless bridesmaid dresses, accompanying her to try on wedding dresses, discussing colors, etc.

The problem is that the bride is spending a fortune. (She insisted on the $2400 wedding dress and wouldn't consider the gorgeous $700 one she tried on, just because it was only $700.) Neither she nor her fiance have saved any money and are up to their ears in debt; they are paying for the wedding.

I have listened to her for years tell me how she doesn't have any money (she makes a good salary and has a good job) but then she is always buying me extravagant gifts, a home she can't afford, etc. I realize that it is her life, but I don't want have to hear her complain that she doesn't have any money because they spent a fortune on the wedding.

How can I be a good friend (to help her make better decisions on spending her money for the wedding) and a good bridesmaid (to make sure she has the wedding of her dreams)?

Sincerely,

It's Like Watching a Car Accident

Dear Watching,

I love black licorice (not those feeble Twizzlers, the real hard Dutch stuff). I can eat large quantities of it with stunning speed, which can make me feel unwell. That is the price I pay. No one has to scold me about it. Unfortunately for you, my stomachache resembles your friend's finances: they are problems your friend and I knowingly bring on ourselves.

Yours is less an issue of etiquette than it is one of friendship. You want to save your friend from herself, and you also want to protect your ears from having to hear her inevitable broken record debt-lament. It is difficult, even irritating to watch self-destructive behavior, but unless you are your friend's mother (which would suggest another kind of problem), there is not much you can do to stop her wedding insanity. Because you are such a close friend, you can certainly make gentle suggestions about ways she can restrain herself that won't compromise her wedding ideals (there are even books of wedding bargains you could tell her about), but beyond that, it is her .

It is a shame that your friend has fallen down the wedding industry rabbit hole, but there is little you can do. After the wedding, when the bills pour in, just have a fistful of new conversation topics handy. The ability to change the subject quickly and invisibly is a sorely underrated talent, and one I yearn for as I go to more and more cocktail parties in an election year.

Good luck, good luck, you have my sympathies.

Cheers,
Elise






posted by Elise at 2:07 PM    <link>

THE CASE OF THE SILENT BRIDESMAID

Dear Elise

This is a question about bridal party etiquette. Since I have never been a bridesmaid, I feel I am missing insight into the role. I asked a good friend of mine, whom I have known continually for 14 years, to be a bridesmaid. I chose to do this in writing. I know she got the letter. She congratulated me. I asked her again, in reply email, if she in fact would be my bridesmaid. No response. I saw her soon after, but never found time to address what I was suspecting would be an ugly conversation. She was very positive about my wedding, asked questions about some of the details, and seemed jovial. I sent her follow up email, reminding her we had not had a chance to talk. She said she would talk to me maybe, perhaps, sometime next-weekish. That week-ish has come and gone.

Now, there is a bit of weirdness. She is dating my ex-husband. As far as I know, he and I are totally ok with all of this, and are happy for each other, remaining good friends. My ex talked to her about it, reporting back that she is going to talk to me soon (-ish I would guess). In this month, I have prodded, I have told her time sensitive choices are being made, I have addressed possible concerns about time and money, but feel like I am delivering a monologue. Since I am limiting my party size, it means I have held back on asking another person.

Since I have never been in her shoes, I am not sure what it means to be asked, or what it feels like. I would think that being asked is an honor, a public acknowledgment that someone really likes you and wants everyone to know. I would think a thank you for the vote of confidence is required at a minimum. I must slip in here how much it hurts to feel rejected, perhaps more than a straightforward "no" would feel. Am I missing the point? I do not view it as an obligation to be a bridesmaid, but I do think the question should be acknowledged. What is the etiquette for me? Do I tell her the offer expires on a certain day; do I take it back? Do I keep asking her until I force an answer? Do I bribe her with a promise of a free dress? This all feels so shameful to do, so cheap.

- Standing Up for Myself

Dear Standing,

This is certainly a Puzzlement (apologies to Rodgers & Hammerstein and Yul Brynner). Something has made your friend clam up, and at the moment, the only person other than your friend who knows what's going on is your former husband, who is also not talking. All of this is annoying, to be sure, and the trick here is to separate the questions of etiquette from the more difficult issues of the heart.

Is your friend waiting for the planets to align? What possible secret could she be harboring that she cannot speak to you about being a bridesmaid? There really isn't one. Your friend is being a little rude and eccentric by keeping her silence. Of course she should be gracious (there are very few occasions where I wouldn't encourage it), and of course she should respect your need to make plans. What she is doing instead is the equivalent of that hideous dating strategy of telling someone you will call him or her back and never doing it. You have every reason to be confused and hurt. Only a certain type of masochist enjoys being strung along.

The only way to deal with this is for you to speak to your friend calmly and directly, in person or on the telephone. She may try to avoid the discussion, but you will just have to wrestle the conversation to the ground to get what you need. I think that giving ultimatums (as in your "offer expires" question) or free dresses won't satisfy you, and won't even necessarily address the problem. This is a question that goes to the bottom of your relationship. Bridesmaid or not, she is your friend and something is making her act strangely and for your sake and hers you need to get to the bottom of it.

Weddings are like tornados, randomly creating the most astonishing fugue states in the minds not only of the bride and groom, but of stray family members and friends. There is no telling what is going on in your friend's mind, but it clearly has to do with your nuptials. The best plan of action is to perform a surgical strike: ask your question, get your answer and resume your friendship.

I'm sorry you have to deal with this. It is the kind of thing that can make one feel terribly backwards and insecure. Just remember: this problem is beyond you and try not to hold it against your friend if she can't bring herself to be your bridesmaid, even if the reason seems, for want of a better word, silly.

Good luck and congratulations,

Elise



posted by Elise at 7:32 PM    <link>

UNWELCOME BROTHER

Dear Elise,

This is my situation: my brother and I have never gotten along - we are more different than any two people can be. Over the last couple of months we have moved past merely not getting along to the point where he is blatantly rude, and obnoxious to me. The rudest people I know would not speak to me or treat me the way he has. My parents got divorced and now my brother treats me and our mother like dirt, and despises the fact I have a relationship with her. This is not just a recent problem. He is unbelievably immature (he is 28) and has ruined every nice event I have had in my life. I had not seen him for several years before these incidents because he was in the service - hopefully he is going back in soon.

Am I obligated to invite him? It makes me ill to think of doing so. My mother supports not inviting him, but I have not discussed it with my father (who he lives with) or my grandparents. I was thinking of having a side conversation with him telling him it would be better for both of us if he did not attend, or just waiting and crossing my fingers he will be out of the country by the time I get married (next May).

What are your thoughts?

Sorry Sister

Dear Sorry,

Generally, I don't recommend using wedding invitations as a way of getting revenge, and tend to advocate (witness "Invitation Obligation" from 1/30/2004 and "Do I Have To?" from 1/28/2004) inclusive guest lists. It seems too wounding to exclude relatives from a happy event that could lead to a possible reconciliation or tentative peace. Not being invited to a wedding is one of those things that people can hold against you for years.

In your case, however, I don't know if this is the best route. Because this is such an intimate problem, it really goes beyond the umbrella of etiquette. In a more plebian "my brother is awful" scenario, I would advise including the brother, and perhaps getting a trustworthy friend to keep an eye on him. Your situation feels more complicated. I only know what you have said in your brief paragraphs, but this does not sound like a relationship you can salvage on your own. Given your brother's tendency to verbally abuse you and your mother, it might be best for everyone not to have such a disruptive presence at your wedding.

There is no way I can guess what will happen. If you have relationships with your father and grandparents that permit it, I think you should sound them out. Since you have over a year to consider what you want to do, allow yourself some flexibility. You are certainly not required to make yourself unhappy or put yourself in a situation where you could be abused, but try to be temperate. A little tolerance on your part could spare you, your mother, and possibly the rest of your family some pain for years to come.

See how the situation evolves. Take counsel, and of course feel free to write again.

Take care of yourself,

Elise


posted by Elise at 2:50 PM    <link>

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