WEDDINGS ARE NOW the biggest and only formal festive event (mercifully overlooking the high school prom) in most people’s lives. Multiple experiences at being wedding guests and attendants, not to mention multiple experiences of being married, have made everyone an expert on wedding etiquette.
The result is that couples with the innocent intention of having a wedding get plenty of advice. Not so much the optional kind of advice, such as “You should have flags made with your entwined initials to fly over the reception hall,” but the threatening kind, stated as “You have to have…” and “Everybody expects…” and “If you want to do it right…”
If only these pronouncements had to do with behaving decently—never mind properly; we will get to that—Miss Manners could retire to her porch swing and confine herself to wishing all bridal couples well (and yes, just a touch more champagne, please). But here are some of the most commonly held ideas that are passed around as “etiquette”:
By no means does Miss Manners mean to suggest that these tenets are held only by bridal couples. Wedding guests not only also hold them (and sprinkle their tales of exploitation with the pathetic admission, “I know it’s their day…”), but have additional ones of their own:
They dare to call these exploitative instructions etiquette? A system that squelches etiquette’s fundamental obligation of consideration of others with the mantra “Remember, this is all about you”? Behavior that suspends the most basic and timeless forms of politeness in order to violate the solemn nature of the ceremony and cancel the obligations of hosts and guests?
Well, yes—and the bridal industry is successful at passing it off as that. It is almost enough to make Miss Manners regret that she revived the word etiquette from comic limbo many decades ago, when the peculiar idea was prevalent that the world would be a pleasanter place if we all behaved naturally.
What sustains Miss Manners is the belief that there are still couples in the world who want to have lovely weddings, and
When subjected to all the widely disseminated wedding advice to the contrary, such people do not fail to notice how egotistical, greedy, and expensive it sounds. But relatives, friends, colleagues, strangers, and, most emphatically, wedding vendors and their publications assure them that these are the customs and traditions they must follow.
Calling vulgarity proper is doublespeak, of which there is an amazing amount in wedding literature. Tradition is invoked to whitewash a self-serving action that was considered appalling a decade or two ago, sometimes selectively plucked out of the context of an unrelated situation. One hears often about ersatz “traditions” of a bride’s collecting money in various ways during the festivities, but never about the ancient tradition of her mother-in-law’s checking the sheets the next morning to see if she had been a virgin. As for those other horrid “customs,” they are indeed now unfortunately as customary as other common forms of rudeness.
In Weddingspeak, “gifts” are specific items on a shopping list compiled by the expectant recipients who distribute said list to people whom they expect to do the buying. The most expensive new items are justified by being called “heirlooms.” “Candid pictures” are posed from a detailed list of directed actions (Bride kisses her dog goodbye before entering limousine—oh, you don’t have a dog?) that together constitute the “memories” of the occasion, as opposed to whatever happens to stick in the mind. “Personalizing” the wedding means devising a ceremony that plays like the couple’s respective press releases, and stylizing the party in a manner alien to the couple’s actual way of life.
IS THAT EXPENSE REALLY NECESSARY?
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
I am 25, mostly financially sound, and trying hard to become more so. I have been seeing my future husband for a year and a half now. He is also mostly financially sound. We very much want to marry, but are unable to make any solid plans because of our lack of means. (At the moment, we are looking at a two-to four-year wait from this point—if we must depend on ourselves alone.)
Eloping is not an option, as our families (and our mutual friends) would never forgive us for the slight, and we would feel terrible to offer insult by leaving them out of our happy day.
My mother is the crux of the problem. It is the bride’s family who traditionally pays for the wedding. How do I find out from my mother if she is able to pay, or even contribute? I know she would be willing, but I also know she is not rolling in cash.
I love my beau, and very much want to marry soon, but I also love my mother and do not wish to cause her discomfort by asking her to reveal if she is impoverished. Should we bear with the current lack of means and rely on ourselves to wed later? Or is there a tactful and loving means of determining what my mother wants to (and is able to) do?
GENTLE READER:
Has the price of a marriage license gone up so much that it will take you years to save the money for it? Will the cost of giving those relatives and friends a glass of champagne or punch, a slice of wedding cake, and perhaps a few tea sandwiches put you in the poorhouse?
Otherwise, Miss Manners cannot understand why two financially sound people who want to marry find themselves in the midst of a Victorian tale of poverty and deprivation.
A truly proper, festive, and enjoyable wedding is not the financial and social burden that you seem to suppose. It is not a one-chance excursion into a fantasy of royalty, film stardom, or childhood fantasies that wrecks not only your budget but your emotions. Few people can handle with equanimity being propelled into unfamiliar territory, taxed with designing a ceremony and a large formal party that showcase their personalities and taste, and directed to produce a complicated day that is perfect.
Instead, you could exhibit truly good taste. That would mean following the time-honored civic or religious ritual in which you believe and then having a gala celebration that favors conviviality over pretentiousness and incidentally stays within your means.
However, if what you two really want is to stage a wedding extravaganza that you cannot afford, Miss Manners will wipe away her tears at your tale of woe. Save up for it, and tell your mother that you are doing so. If she wants to help, she will volunteer.
IT CAN BE DONE
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
I received an invitation to a June wedding which stated the parents of Miss Bride-to-Be and Mr. Groom, of This City, would be honored by my presence at their wedding at this place on this date at this time. There was no list of where the happy couple is registered, no hinting about what they would like me to help pay for the wedding; there was not even one of those cards for me to return (in the pre-stamped envelope provided) for me to respond with my terms of acceptance of their invitation.
I was thrilled. I think this was the first time I’ve seen what an actual wedding invitation is supposed to look like, outside of examples in etiquette books. I sent off my reply immediately and am now shopping for silver candlesticks. I also thought you would like to know there are people who do remember how it’s done.
GENTLE READER:
Miss Manners thanks you. She, too, has been fortunate enough to witness charming weddings, untainted by crass assumptions and bad theatrics.
However, please read on.
UNPRINCIPLED NOTIONS
Weddings still make people cry, Miss Manners has discovered. But not, it seems, for the traditional reasons.
The spectacle of an innocent young couple inspired by love to leave the homes and protection of their respective parents and create an irrevocable bond used to set off the sensitive souls among their guests. When people of experience emerge from their own home to create a negotiable bond subject to cancellation, it may still be touching, but perhaps not to a tear-jerking extent.
However, among the people associated with modern weddings, there are still plenty on the verge of tears:
So who, exactly, is enjoying this ordeal?
Miss Manners still believes in happy weddings and has been to more than a few. But she is beginning to understand why observers of the wedding scene—other than those who are there for love or money—assert that there is an inverse relationship between the elaborateness of the wedding festivities and the success of the marriage. A number of sociologists, divorce lawyers, and members of the clergy have said publicly that the more lavish, complicated, and prolonged the arrangements, the more likely the marriage is to end in divorce.
Here is what makes Miss Manners teary: The spectacle of a couple—perhaps not so young and not so innocent but nevertheless in love—who feel obliged to devote untold amounts of time and money to producing an elaborate festival that is beyond their experience and capacity and leaves everyone cranky.
Parent Abuse
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
Plain and simple…My fiancé’s mother is remarried to a man who has two adult daughters. My fiancé and I barely know them. Sometimes we can’t even remember which one is which!
My fiancé’s mother insists that we invite both of them, along with their significant others that we really don’t know, to our wedding. We were not planning on inviting them, but now that his mother has said something…do we invite them because it’s the “right” thing to do…or do we stick to our guns about only inviting people that are special to us to our wedding?
GENTLE READER:
Stick to the guns that you are pointing at relatives to prevent them from trespassing on your private territory?
Miss Manners hopes not. Plain and simple, weddings are not “about” the bridal couples to the exclusion of the feelings of others. As proud as you may be of not being able to tell your fiancé’s stepsisters apart, they are in his mother’s family. And she is in his, and about to be in yours.
Bridesmaid Abuse
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
Is it impolite for one of the bride’s attendants to wear an engagement ring during the festivities (given that the bridesmaid is newly, within days, engaged)?
GENTLE READER:
No, but Miss Manners is puzzled about the thinking that prompted this question. Is it the idea that bridesmaids are a chorus line back-up for the bride, suppressing their individuality for aesthetic unity, even down to their own symbols of attachment? Or that the excitement of this lady’s new engagement would somehow detract from the wedding?
Either notion would be a sorry negation of what bridesmaids are really supposed to be: the bride’s dearest friends, all of whom are individuals with lives of their own. The bride is supposed to care enough about them to wish them happiness and should be especially disposed to appreciate the happiness of love and marriage. Nothing detracts from a wedding as much as a self-centered bride.
Guest Abuse
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
After my relative was married in a lavish affair with copious amounts of food and drink, the bridal couple compared what all the relatives had given for wedding gifts.
All had given money and the amounts were disclosed, along with complaints about those who had not given enough. Some relatives gave hundreds of dollars while others gave thousands of dollars.
What do you think of this? I don’t know what was spent on the wedding reception, but are the guests required to “reimburse” their hosts for the cost of their meal by the largess in terms of the wedding gift? It seemed to me the wedding reception was a bit overdone.
GENTLE READER:
Well, doesn’t that sound like a good time was had by all.
Or, considering the countless and shameless money-shaking schemes that bridal couples have disclosed to Miss Manners (in the idiotic hope that she could whitewash them with bogus etiquette), maybe this couple was just franker about what seems to be the chief purpose of such weddings.
No, of course guests shouldn’t calculate the cost of their dinners when selecting presents. The very notion that wedding guests, or any guests, owe their hosts for what they ate and drank is a disgusting perversion of the notion of hospitality. People who want to charge admission to their weddings, rather than simply to share the occasion with those about whom they care, should sell tickets.
P.S. What were your relatives’ reactions to this attempt at public shaming? Did they rush to pour more money into those grasping hands?
MISS MANNERS TO THE RESCUE
You begin to see why Miss Manners has to put down her champagne glass and go rescue well-meaning couples who are bombarded with mean-spirited misinformation. She will begin by administering some instant relief.
Things a Bride Need Not Trouble Her Pretty Head About
OVER THE BRIDAL BRINK
A virulent strain of Wedding Fatigue has become increasingly common and dangerous. Although it has not been shown to cause permanent damage, it nibbles away at otherwise healthy brains, rendering them useless for months.
As Miss Manners recalls, the old form merely affected that part of the brain that was designed to participate in debates about which shade of peach the bridesmaids’ shoes should be dyed and whether Grandma’s beau should be seated up front. The relatives and friends of brides and, not infrequently, the bridegroom were typically the first to succumb.
But now that couples insist on doing all the planning together, Wedding Fatigue has begun to attack them both. Rather than producing paralytic boredom, as it does in others, this strain deprives its victims of even a modicum of common sense. So here, in the spirit of healing, are answers to questions Miss Manners has received, questions people in their right minds would not have had to ask:
Q: “On the invitations do I have to list my last name? It is still my name from my first marriage; I did not change it back due to my child. I really would like it if there was some way not to have it on the invitation.”
A: Yet your prospective guests would really like to know who is getting married. What makes you think you are the only Madison they know?
Q: “I would like to ask for my g/f’s hand in marriage, but due to the nature of things now, her parents are divorced and her father lives in another state, and she currently resides with her mother and siblings. I would like to do the traditional thing of asking her father, but I do not know his phone number and I would like for it to be a surprise. What should I do?”
A: Consult an online telephone directory.
Q: “What is the rule of thumb for wearing the man’s wedding ring prior to the wedding day? Can the man wear the ring on his left hand, third finger, or should it be put in a safe place till the wedding day?”
A: It is not his ring yet; it is the bride’s. Read the wedding ceremony—she gives it to him then. And the thumb has nothing to do with it.
Q: “My wedding dress is ivory and the tux shop and dress shop recommend ivory shirts, ties, and vests for the men. They say that since the wedding dress is ivory, the men should be in ivory so as not to make the dress appear dirty. My fiancé is sure that we will lose that formal evening flare if he is wearing ivory with his tux.”
A: The groomsmen can only make the bride look dirty if they get drunk and make off-color jokes about her. But if you want to be absolutely safe, you had better skip the wedding cake so its bright white icing doesn’t make you look soiled.
Miss Manners apologizes for any signs that she might have been impatient with these questions. She wishes all these brides and bridegrooms great happiness and a speedy recovery.
OPTING OUT
An increasing number of couples are said to be eloping because they can’t bear going through the ordeal of a conventional wedding. Far from disapproving, Miss Manners would be suspicious of anyone planning a big wedding who didn’t sigh at least once about how much nicer it would be to elope. Someone so seduced by the envisioned glory of the occasion as to fail to remark, “Darling, don’t you just wish the two of us could slip away without all this fuss?” (not necessarily putting down the three-ring notebook with the e-mail addresses of florists and bands) probably shouldn’t be getting married.
Yet Miss Manners would also like to caution against impetuous elopement, and not only because wily wedding vendors have come to require a deposit. Elopement may indeed be the kind way to avoid all-out warfare between irreconcilable factions, and the lasting animosities that would obliterate the fact that marriage is the joining of two families. But that would be something more than the couple’s wanting a rock band while the parents want old show tunes.
However, avoiding fuss is something she can understand. So let us talk fuss. In some cases, it is the competing desires of relatives and friends that are thought to create too much fuss. Families want the wedding held in one place, friends in another; the bride and bridegroom come from different cultural or religious backgrounds, perhaps from more than one each; the older generation’s idea of festivity is different from the younger’s; everyone seems to have enemies among those who ought to be invited. This merely strikes Miss Manners as an excellent opportunity for the couple to learn how to placate others and negotiate compromise, major requirements for family life.
The fuss that others want to avoid is the time and energy, not to mention the money, involved in putting on a lavish production. They are quite right. Running a three-day show for hordes of business acquaintances is neither necessary nor tasteful.
What does seem to be necessary to the human spirit is some sense of ritual connected with so momentous a step in life. It amuses Miss Manners that people who have talked for years about getting married, and very likely already share a household, are deeply interested in the rituals of the formal wedding. It touches her, too. Presumably there are people who never regret having skipped any semblance of ceremony when they married. But Miss Manners keeps hearing from those who made the decision to marry without any fanfare and are now complaining that they missed out on an entitlement and asking how to make up for it.
Miss Manners seems to have missed the section of the Constitution that guarantees every couple an elaborate wedding. A proper wedding is simply a dignified ceremony followed by a happy celebration for those who care about the couple, done in a somewhat more formal version of the way they usually entertain. It also seems to her that those who married without ritual are free to have post-wedding receptions and then anniversary parties that are as elaborate as they like, but should not feel that the world has cheated them. What is marriage, if not the ability to make a decision and then stick by it later?
Eloping
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
Believe it or not, I have no desire for a big, traditional wedding. My dream is to elope while on vacation, getting married on a tropical beach. No hassles, no outlandish costs, no pomp and circumstance. How do I handle family and friends who would expect the traditional wedding? Mom, my best friend, would be devastated (I think). I’m the only daughter. What sort of after-event could we have to share our joy with everyone? Is there elopement etiquette?
GENTLE READER:
The traditional reason for an elopement was to thwart the hopes, plans, and dreams of the bride’s parents, which is why the entire rest of the world sympathized with elopers. Thwarting parents has always had a wide sentimental appeal, even by people who don’t know the elopers, parents, or anyone else concerned.
It is also why the traditional elopement was sometimes followed by the traditional annulment. When the mean and unromantic parents pointed out that the bride was supposed to be in junior high school and the bridegroom was wanted in four states, happily ever after could be prematurely terminated. But even now, when parents are considerably less vigilant, couples elope.
There are many reasons for an elopement, some of them nicer than others. Perhaps the couple wishes to spare their parents (or themselves) the expense. Or they have been married before and wish to spare others repeating the fuss that may have been made over one or both of them at previous ceremonies. Perhaps they are eluding unromantic employers with an anti-nepotism policy. Perhaps they are thwarting parents in a modernized way—rejecting parental ideas of a proper wedding, rather than parental ideas of the proper spouse. Or perhaps they consider the choice of wedding scenery more important than the people who would otherwise be the wedding guests.
Miss Manners has no desire to talk people into big weddings, pomp and circumstance usually being more threatening than encouraging to proper wedding behavior. But pray, what do you call a hassle if it is not an action that causes devastation for your mother (and thus, as you gracefully say, for your best friend)? That you may be satisfied with a vacation wedding is not enough if it would cause her genuine distress.
That is not to say others cannot be talked around. If your mother would be satisfied with a big wedding reception upon your return from elopement, Miss Manners certainly has no objection.
Eloping Locally
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
I fear this sounds silly, and indeed I consider it so myself, but is there actually any rudeness in not holding a big wedding when one can afford it?
As soon as our engagement was announced, my fiancé and I started fielding questions from friends about when and where the wedding will take place, always with the assumption that they would be invited.
The truth is, we will probably go to city hall with our parents and a handful of very close friends as witnesses, then go get celebratory ice cream sundaes. When we try to explain we won’t be having a big ceremony and reception, many seem to take offense and consider us cheapskates.
That’s the thing, you see—theoretically, we could afford a giant wedding, but neither of us would enjoy such an event, nor would we consider that good use of our savings. I know it’s possible to hold a reasonable, tasteful reception on a budget, but it requires enormous amounts of time and planning, and I must admit that organizing social events makes me terribly anxious and I dread the very thought.
The way I see it, we can either hire someone to plan everything, and spend more than we’d like, or organize it ourselves and thus make ourselves miserable, or…have our tiny dream wedding and send our friends a postcard from the honeymoon.
Is it actually rude not to hold a reception? You’d think friends would be grateful to be spared another night of bad catering, not to mention the cost of travel, attire, and gifts!
GENTLE READER:
Perhaps your friends are so overcome with love for you and pleasure in your marriage that they long to witness it. In that case, you might consider a wedding that is big in the guest list but otherwise simple—an afternoon ceremony followed by ice cream sundaes, for example.
Yet Miss Manners does not believe that is the reason you are being importuned any more than you do. Now that weddings so often comprise multiple extravagant events, people have come to regard them as put on for their entertainment. You do not owe them that. Her only addition to your plan is to suggest that you refrain from announcing it beforehand, and describe it in your postal cards as an elopement.
Downsizing
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
I am happily engaged to be married soon. I would like my wedding and reception to be a true celebration with friends and family who love us and wish us well, but I have a very limited budget.
To that end, I have resorted to a buffet-style luncheon to be eaten with paper and plastic products rather than china and silver. I will use traditionally worded, plain ivory invitations; however, they will be printed, not engraved, and will not include that superfluous bit of tissue or (you will be happy to hear) those monstrous response cards. I will have only one attendant, and family and friends are helping prepare the food, cakes, and decorations.
When you have recovered consciousness, perhaps you could reassure me that I am not a disgrace to well-mannered brides everywhere. My distress, which is quite acute, stems from my feeling suddenly that etiquette is the purview of the well-off, of which I am not a member. As a well-mannered Southern girl, I desperately want my ceremony and festivities to be proper and feel that perhaps I am operating outside these bounds. Please help.
GENTLE READER:
The proper thing for you to do is to help Miss Manners up off the floor first. She fell into a faint all right, but not over the idea that not having a big vulgar wedding is a violation of etiquette.
What sent her crashing—her smelling salts, please; there’s a dear—is your notion that etiquette is some sort of luxury cultivated by the rich. You must have met very few of them.
Etiquette has nothing to do with gaggles of chorus-line bridesmaids, groan-producing dinners, endless revelries, and the other over-done ingredients of the debt-ridden wedding. The simplest weddings are, in fact, the most likely to be proper. For example, engraved invitations are merely the traditional substitute for handwritten ones. Rather than printing imitations of engraving, the more charming, not to mention cheaper, alternative is to write them out by hand.
The greatest improprieties occur when bridal couples ignore the comfort and convenience of their guests in their efforts to aggrandize themselves. Miss Manners trusts that your friends and relatives volunteered to help with the cooking, rather than being assigned to do so. And when she suggests firm plates and flatware, she is not hoping for a commission from the sale of china and silver—any reasonably attractive ceramic and metal will do—but rather thinking of how nasty it is to eat from paper.
The Re-enacted Wedding
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
My boyfriend and I need to get legally married now for immigration purposes in order to stay in the same country after I graduate medical school. We cannot afford a wedding right now and the timing is bad because of an intense medical school schedule.
For the two of us, this civil marriage feels like our engagement. We would also like our family and friends to think our wedding is meaningful, when we do have the “real” ceremony in a year or so. However, we didn’t want to keep such a serious decision from our parents, who are traditional and upset about this split setup.
What should we tell friends who kindly inquire about our future plans and engagement status? What should we ask our parents to say when faced with the same questions? I dislike lying, but I also feel that this is private information.
GENTLE READER:
We can only hope that your reluctance to face the facts and your conviction that you can manipulate reality and suppress inconvenient information will not carry over to your medical career.
Miss Manners is aware that many couples have now separated getting married from what they are pleased to call “having a wedding.” They throw the party at another time, which would be fine in itself, but they include a fake ceremony, as if that made it as important an occasion as the real thing.
That Miss Manners is not the only person who considers this fraudulent is evident from your realization that your guests will not find the rerun as meaningful as actually witnessing your marriage. And you cannot make your legal marriage into an engagement by declaring it so. Rather than tangle yourself further in this deception, Miss Manners recommends admitting to your friends and family that you are married but that you will be inviting them to a delayed celebration later.
The Subsequent Wedding
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
When my daughter was married five years ago, the marriage lasted two years and ended in divorce. She has been living for two years with another young man, and they are planning to be married. She wants a large church wedding, complete with white flowing wedding gown and veil and several bridesmaids.
At her first wedding, she received many, many beautiful gifts from our generous family, friends, and business associates. She was well supplied with fine and casual china, silver and stainless flatware, and crystal in her chosen patterns. She intends to select and register new patterns of silver, china, and crystal. I question the propriety, and am embarrassed that our family, friends, and associates will feel pressured to give another nice gift.
GENTLE READER:
Your daughter quarreled not only with her husband, but with her silverware? My, that is anger. Or did he manage to clean her out during the divorce?
No matter. Miss Manners is addressing her answer to the part about wedding presents to the guests. Since your daughter will of course only admit to being registered when she is specifically asked, it is they who need to decide whether they need help in figuring out what to give her.
Wedding presents, particularly elaborate ones, are not as customary with subsequent weddings as with a first. There is nothing wrong with seeing someone married twice (or however often she plans) and sending only a token present after the first time, or even just a letter wishing her well.
The truly proper second wedding is small and relatively informal—the bride wears a perfectly smashing suit, in a delicate pastel color rather than white, and an even more smashing hat instead of a veil. She has one honor attendant, not a parade of them, partly because all her old friends now know that her previous promise to them—never mind her promise to her previous bridegroom—was false: They have not had other occasions to wear those bridesmaid dresses she made them buy.
Before Miss Manners is attacked by starry-eyed brides who made one little mistake and now want to go all out for what they insist is their first true marriage, notice that she is waving a tiny, white, lace-edged handkerchief. She is neither so vulgar as to associate the white dress with inexperience, nor so mean as to throw etiquette brickbats in place of rose petals. Like true well-wishers, she is inclined to be indulgent.
UPDATING TRADITION
Can weddings be run without sex playing a significant part?
Oh, dear. That does not at all sound like what Miss Manners intended. What she means to discuss is whether the division of tasks and honors by gender, which has always characterized weddings, should be overhauled in the light of gender enlightenment.
Oddly enough, this does not seem to be as much of a problem when wedding principals do not match the traditional definitions. State legislators enjoy working themselves into a lather over that issue, but Miss Manners has noticed that same-sex couples have been using the sensible and (she would think) obvious solution of presenting themselves as two brides or two bridegrooms.
But good sense does not often apply when many couples assemble their wedding party. Gender is considered to be such a defining characteristic of giving the bride away, or serving as maid of honor, best man, bridesmaid, or groomsman that most weddings maintain the division to the exclusion of other qualifications.
Some of the questions that keep arising are:
Rather than await Miss Manners’ pronouncements on these questions, many bridal couples have taken matters into their own hands, or sometimes fists. It is not uncommon now to see lots of parental names on invitations, to hear that the bride’s friends took her out to a male strip joint while the bridegroom’s friends had a quiet dinner at a respectable restaurant, for the bridegroom to wear attention-getting clothes and for everyone concerned to claim that everyone else concerned (and some people who just happened to be briefly passing through the family) should contribute to paying the bill.
It is high time that Miss Manners made some order out of all this. She is not against change. Etiquette is continually evolving and always has been, as life changes. Full dignity for ladies is one of the best changes to come along in centuries.
But tradition also has a claim. Why else are all these hysterical people involved in putting on this spectacle? Customs that have outlived their original reasons may nevertheless still carry emotional weight. Orderly change consists of adapting tradition to the actual situation it is to adorn.
A small lesson in social history seems to be in order.
The Anglo-American wedding format that is more or less current did not really begin until Victorian times. Before then (and long after for those who had neither the funds nor the habit of lavish personal ceremonies), couples, perhaps accompanied by a few relatives and friends, merely donned their best clothes, and after the formalities of the marriage, returned home for a festive midday meal.
As more prosperous people expanded the occasion, they did so to fit the circumstances of the time. The bride’s parents traditionally gave the wedding because she went from their home and support to her husband’s. Their names alone were on the invitation because they were the hosts.
She was more likely to have a father than a mother (childbirth being a perilous business), and even in a two-parent family, a father who believed himself (the silly man) to have total control over his daughter gave her away because her fate was in his hands.
And in those days, neither bride nor bridegroom had any trouble explaining being “just good friends” with a person of the opposite gender, because they weren’t. Her attendants were all female because her friends were, and similarly, the bridegroom’s attendants were all male. One of the great social advances of our time is the realization that not every tie between a lady and a gentleman is brimming with erotic excitement.
Miss Manners is all for retaining charming old traditions, provided that the deeper meaning is not sacrificed to superficial considerations.
Certainly both sets of parents, or the bridegroom’s alone, can give the wedding, or the bridal couple themselves or their friends. Parents’ names may be retained as sentimental figureheads, even if the couple does all the planning and paying. However, considering that brides seldom grow up next door to their bridegrooms, the identity of the latter becomes necessary in a way it never used to be. Miss Manners does not object to an invitation saying whose son he is, although she prefers that the bridegroom’s parents merely slip a formal card with their names into invitations for their side of the list.
What no one concerned can do is to assign bills to other people, or sell or withhold wedding honors. Any offers to contribute, especially if there is a need, are gracious, and qualify as strictly family business with which etiquette would not dream of interfering.
If a bride wants to retain the symbolism of being given away, it should be by someone to whom she feels she belongs. It could be her father or stepfather, or both parents, or a guardian. But if she was reared by a single mother, the mother should do it.
The Best Person
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
I am to be involved in a wedding in which two of my dearest friends will marry each other. In lieu of a best man, the groom has asked me, a female, to act as “best person.” This is an honor and I am touched as well as proud of my friend’s openmindedness.
It has come to my attention that some of the other women in the bridal party are apprehensive in regard to my role in the wedding, a formal church ceremony. I wish to be sensitive to the feelings of those who may be uncomfortable with this break with tradition, as well as being correct in my behavior.
GENTLE READER:
It troubles Miss Manners to think why these bridesmaids are apprehensive. Do they imagine that one of them will have to dance with you at the reception? Do they think of the recessional as a parade of pseudo-romantic couples?
All this would be silly. Traditionally, the bridegroom is attended by his best friend, friendship being the chief selection factor, not gender. Of course you will dress as a lady and dance with gentlemen. You will not offer any lady your arm, but merely march at the maid of honor’s side as paired bridesmaids do in a processional. But if the bride’s honor attendant is a gentleman, he may offer you his arm.
Pilfering Traditions
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
I recently received an e-mail invitation to the wedding of a family friend. While I considered this improper, I realize the times are different and often young people don’t take the time to find out the proper etiquette for these things. Within the wording of the invitation, however, was a headshot of an engagement-type photo of the happy couple—dressed in traditional Muslim garb! The bride-to-be, a beautiful young woman, was totally unrecognizable, since, of course, only her eyes showed.
This is not a Muslim couple. He is Protestant and she is Catholic. Needless to say there had been much discussion among the receivers of this invitation. Is this some new trend? I understand the photo was taken on a recent trip, and I found it to be offensive, but perhaps I am old school.
GENTLE READER:
The new school would find it even more offensive to mock other people’s religions by playing dress-up, Miss Manners assures you.
Through immigration, assimilation, and intermarriage, American rituals are legitimately a mixture of many cultures. Routines, such as the Unity Candle, that seemed to creep in from nowhere, she finds less charming, but all right, if you must. Masquerading is not.
Discarding Traditions
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
What do you think about receiving an invitation to a wedding but not the reception? A friend and I were discussing another friend who was invited by a neighbor to a wedding for the neighbors’ daughter, but not included in the invitation was the invite to the reception.
The friend and I felt it is extremely rude to invite people only to the wedding, and feel that it appears as if a gift is desired, but that the host is not interested in paying for a meal. We both feel that if one is not close enough to be invited to the reception, she should not be invited to either. What is your opinion?
GENTLE READER:
That it is a fine and useful example of etiquette’s not being enslaved by tradition. For indeed, it was once commonplace to discriminate among the guests at what were considered fashionable weddings. Some received reception cards in their invitations, others did not.
Why the latter group did not think, “Why would I want to witness their marriage when they don’t want to see me afterward?” Miss Manners cannot imagine. It was rude then, and it is rude now.
TROUBLESHOOTING
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
The man I have been seeing and I have decided to get married. We are both graduate students. His family lives close to where we are attending school, and my family is large and very spread out. I have many siblings, and most of them have small children and infants, so it is not easy for them to travel. I am very shy and have never been fond of the idea of having a wedding, especially the kind that are so prevalent today, where people seem to put on a spectacle. I feel that a marriage is a very private affair, and while I am close to my family, I am not comfortable with the idea of having a wedding ceremony in front of them.
On the other hand, I don’t want to be selfish. My mother and siblings have expressed dismay and told me that they would be hurt if I had a wedding ceremony that did not include them. They are not pressuring me to have a big event, but since it is so difficult for everyone to travel, I am afraid it would become an event.
Further, we don’t have any kind of a budget for a “real” wedding. It is such an intimate occasion to me that I would feel embarrassed if anyone were there who doesn’t have to be (my fiancé and me), even if it is just family. I don’t know how my fiance’s family feels about this issue, but I will certainly take that into account. I love both his family and mine and would not want to hurt them, but the idea of a wedding where I am half the focal point is almost excruciating.
Am I just being like everyone else who is getting married lately and making this into “my day,” when I should be taking the families’ wishes into account?
GENTLE READER:
If you are, you have certainly put a unique twist on it. A bride who doesn’t want to be the focus?
You have left us speechless. Well, almost. We do wonder what you imagine goes into the ceremony that would cause such profound embarrassment in front of your own family.
You can simply go down to the local courthouse, which might meet your family’s definition of a non-event they wouldn’t mind missing. It is crucial that you find out about your fiancé’s family’s feelings, however. Not including them might set the precedent for lifelong tension and resentment. Please see the following.
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
Recently my husband and I eloped. Realizing that there were conflicts between who we should invite (some of my family are estranged), and who we wanted to invite, we opted to marry with only my son, the minimum two witnesses, minister, and photographer. Instead we have managed to upset everyone. Particularly my new parents-in-law. While we get along in every other instance, every visit occasions a mention of how they were not invited to our ceremony (we did not hold a reception due to lack of funds).
Is there a polite and graceful way to point out that this was not an intentional slight to them, but rather an extremely intimate ceremony for us? Or do we have to accept that they are hurt and we will hear about it from now on?
GENTLE READER:
Citing the occasion’s intimacy only emphasizes to your family that they are not among your intimates. Since you had a photographer present (which begs the obvious: how exactly do you define “intimate”?), perhaps you can make amends by showing them how brief a moment they missed.
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
The idea of the “selfish bride” who is “overexposed to the commercial wedding literature” is one of many negative stereotypes about women. It contains the following false assumptions:
I’ve been involved in six weddings in the past two years (including my own), and in five cases the bride was very sensible and the mother was wedding-crazy. Here are some quotations from brides in those five cases (not including my own): “My Mom told me that the wedding had nothing to do with my fiancé and I,” and “I’m licking my wounds.”
An incredible amount of resentment can build when wedding-crazy mothers repeatedly assume domineering attitudes towards sensible brides. For this reason, I’ve come to view “bridal assertiveness” as healthy—it prevents resentment from building and strengthens family relationships in the long run.
The bride doesn’t need to justify, she doesn’t need to convince. She is allowed to just say no. She knows what is truly necessary for her happiness.
Weddings are three-family events—there is a new family being created—and on some level parents don’t like this. They struggle to maintain dominant roles in their children’s lives and they fight mightily to preserve the idea that “we know best.” The ability of adult children to resist this and say no is important for the long-term health of their new marriage, in addition to actually promoting healthy family relationships over the long run.
GENTLE READER:
A little angry at Mom, are we?
But no, we don’t wish to support a negative stereotype of women by depicting the pushy bride, just as we’re sure you don’t mean to advocate a negative stereotype of women by characterizing the overbearing mother.
Bad behavior knows no gender, age, or relationship. We do not wish to imply that any one party is the most prone to blame, which is why we like to give the brunt of it to the wedding industry. At least they are making money from it.
Family harmony is, indeed, the goal here and anyone pushing her agenda just to make a point is clearly working against this. There are ways to maintain one’s ground reasonably without reciprocating bad behavior.
If a bride needs to use her wedding day as an excuse finally to assert herself against her overbearing mother, then she clearly wasted her teenage years. And her new husband can probably look forward to reliving them over the long run, as you suggest.
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
My fiancé and I feel strongly that our wedding plans should be accommodating to our parents’ wishes. They’ve been dreaming about this day longer than we have, and weddings are really about families coming together. We want it to be joyous for everyone involved and are determined not to make people wear clothes they don’t like or feel obligated to do anything they don’t want to do. We have agreed to give in on the things that are not very important to us. However, we also want our wedding to be correct.
Although overall their ideas are lovely, occasionally a well-meaning soul enthusiastically suggests something that we do not want to do. Like ask guests to help pay for our honeymoon, or include “and guest” on the invitations, or order the bridesmaids to get matching haircuts. When it’s someone not helping to plan the wedding, it’s fairly easy to smile and say, “Hmm…Perhaps…” and leave it at that, but it’s hard to pretend to consider the wording on the invitation with someone who is directly involved with the wording on the invitation. So how should we respond, when it’s one of our parents or closest family or friends?
GENTLE READER:
Sit your loved ones down and explain that you are so well brought up that you want to incorporate the family ideals into the wedding. No one is to be financially burdened, demeaned, put out, or otherwise embarrassed.
But (you add) you desperately need their help to pull off this highly unusual approach. Talk over each dreadful idea seriously, mentioning the dangers: Even if mandating identical haircuts didn’t make the bridesmaids run from you clutching their heads, it would look cultish to your guests.
You live within your means, and fortunately don’t have to swallow your pride and ask your friends for money. And you don’t mind taking the trouble to find out the guests’ romantic attachments’ names so as to save them the insultingly anonymous “and guest” designation.
You might say that you have had your share of giggles over other people’s attempts to be clever and original with their invitations. “But ‘Hallelujah she’s not knocked up!’ or ‘Jack and Martha want you to watch Sarah finally make it legal’ will give Grandma a heart attack and we want ours to be serious. No nicknames, even—we will use our full names, as you gave them to us.”
Your parents will have no choice but to be proud that they have reared children who can pay for their own vacations and relieved that their own wallets will not be exploited. (Talking point: The more gracious solution is usually the less expensive one.) A flattering and reasonable attitude should at least embarrass them into appearing gracious when they don’t get what they want.