The Etiquette Thread

[batmom]

I believe it was anne who asked why we don't congratulate the bride. I think that the answer is that it implies that she finally succeed in catching a man and so has avoided spinsterhood, or some such thing. I'll have to consult my Miss Manners book, but I believe that's the gist of it.

It's a sad fact that far too many people view their weddings as cash grabs. You are not obligated to play along. If you are invited to a shower and you feel that you have already been tapped out by the couple, don't go. Or set your budget for a gift and divvy it up. If you're going to spend $100 and are invited to two showers, you can spend $25 on a gift per shower and $50 on a wedding gift, for example.

This myth hasn't come up in this thread but I see it so often I'm going to proactively dispell it: You do not have one year in which to write your thank you notes. Guests have one year in which to give a wedding gift, if they are going to give one. You must write your thank you notes in as timely a manner as possible.

[anne]

Thanks for the congratulations answer Batmom, and THANK YOU for bringing up the thank you note thing!!!!! When my best friend got married, she considered the year rule to be her godsend. She kept on putting off and putting off the thank you notes, claiming she had a year. I had multiple friends who called me to see if I knew if she'd received their gifts, because it had been so long and they had not receive a note. Drove me crazy. The irony was, my mother knew this friend was a bit weak on all things etiquette. So as a polite nudge as an engagement gift, she'd given her this bridal book gift pack thing which had guides for organizing, books to keep track of gifts and plans, and a guide to etiquette. I filled out the gift registry for her, so I know she used it. Apparently, she skipped reading the etiquette guide!

[Deleted]

Well, Starboy is 7 years old. I only kept the hardware (crib, stroller, car seats). I'm not asking for anything, I just want to celebrate this baby.

I wrote all my thank you notes for wedding gifts one week after I got married. I just wanted to get it out of the way! If I had waited for a year, they would have never been done.

[Oxynia]

Stardancer, maybe you or a friend/relative could host a lunch or (as already mentioned) a tea to just bask in the good wishes of the people there. It should be specified that it's not a shower and that gifts aren't expected, even though some will want to bring something. Maybe the invitation could ask people to bring their baby pics or anecdotes from childhood or something that can be shared with the rest of the guests, so the time is spent talking and celebrating, not opening presents. I don't see any issue with that, given the circumstances that prevented you from being at your first baby shower.

I wrote out our thank you notes as soon as we returned from our honeymoon. Notice I said *I* wrote them out...Mr. Oxynia was forced to lick the stamps and he even complained about that much. There's no way I would have let it sit for any longer than that, certainly not an entire year! That's very rude to the people who would like a little acknowledgement that their thoughtfulness was received and appreciated.

[zivvie]

WRT the conratulations vs. best wishes: IIRC, the groom receives the congratulations because he nabbed himself a good woman (or some such sexist nonsense), and the bride receives best wishes because no one knows how good a husband the man will turn out to be (or some such sexist nonsense). This is recalled from a long ago class, so YMMV.

I think Stardancer's idea of a "welcome the new baby" party is lovely. I have heard of such a thing before, especially with a lot of people now having second batches of kids born years apart. I especially like the part about bringn baby ictures, either of the guests themselves or the children of the guests. I hope whoever hosts your party doesn't do any of the stupid baby shower games, like "what flavor baby food is this?" or "who can change a diaper the fastest?". The more that people can enjoy each other's company, food and beverage without extra silliness the better.

The thing that gets me about wedding thank-you notes (actually, it's people who can't get them done within a year) is that they know - they know - that they're going to receive gifts from certain people: parents, close friends, wedding party members, etc. In order to facilitate the process, why don't they just address beforehand the thank-you note envelopes for those they know will give them gifts? It can make the whole process a little less daunting.

[anne]

zivvie said:

The thing that gets me about wedding thank-you notes (actually, it's people who can't get them done within a year) is that they know - they know - that they're going to receive gifts from certain people: parents, close friends, wedding party members, etc. In order to facilitate the process, why don't they just address beforehand the thank-you note envelopes for those they know will give them gifts? It can make the whole process a little less daunting.

Because that would cut into their time to bask in the spotlight of being the most important person on earth ... the only one to have EVER gotten married!

[batmom]

The thing that gets me about wedding thank-you notes (actually, it's people who can't get them done within a year) is that they know - they know - that they're going to receive gifts from certain people: parents, close friends, wedding party members, etc. In order to facilitate the process, why don't they just address beforehand the thank-you note envelopes for those they know will give them gifts? It can make the whole process a little less daunting.

The Batnana, who is most organized, had all the addresses for our invitees on index cards. Initially this was to facilitate the guest list. She gave some to my MIL to write out the addresses, some to us for our friends, and she wrote out hers.

When we opened our wedding gifts, we wrote down who gave what on the back of the cards so that when we did the Thank You notes (Batguy did about 1/4-1/3. I made him on pain of death) all the info we needed was right there. A-B Monday night, C-F, Tuesday night, etc.

I still have the recipe box with the index cards; it's my address book.

[Oxynia]

Now THAT is organised! I wish you could have lent me Batnana when *I* got married!!

Great advice, and I'll keep it in mind for any friends getting married.

[dnt]

Thanks for the congratulations answer Batmom, and THANK YOU for bringing up the thank you note thing!!!!!

Seconded; I still bear a grudge against one of my cousins. My parents paid for me to go to Scotland for her wedding the year after I graduated college (airfare and hotel) and at the time, I was making the princely sum of $22,000/year. I gave her 75 pounds as a wedding gift (at a time when when the exchange rate was about $1.60) and did I get a thank you card? No, I did not. And let me tell you, when I spent the last week there living on McDonalds because I couldn't afford to eat anything else, I could have used that money. Especially because British beef tastes really weird to my American palate and I had to drown my burgers in oceans of ketchup to make them palatable.

[Sunnyhorse]

Yikes, DNT, that sucks. Why are people so ungracious? One of my younger cousins got married about a year and a half ago, and her mother (my first cousin) basically came to my mother and told Mom what she and my sisters and I would be buying her daughter for wedding gifts (items from a particular pattern of dishware). She's always seemed to have it in her head that our branch of the family has money (not sure why!) and apparently thinks that we're dying to spend it on her kids. We did indeed buy dishes and such for the bride, because we like her, but as far as I know, not one of us got a thank-you note. She got bitch-slapped by karma, though -- a year into the marriage, her husband informed her that he didn't feel like being married anymore and up and left.