Damn wedding weenie!

The BBQ Pit
81

why am I not surprised you don’t get invited to many weddings?

It’s nice that you have your own code of etiquette, perhaps you do understand that the purpose of etiquette is to have some idea of what is considered rude by others? So, for example, if one has one’s own interpretation of language that might be nice and ducky for them, but even if in your own world “fuck off” is the highest compliment one might bestow, we do hope that you understand that it would be nice to find out if others share your view, eh? as for your position of your child being your responsability etc, etc. we can assume, then, that you would insist on bringing said hypothetical child w/you to your proctologist appointment? work? the bar with friends? You’d bring your dog to the same places, since you are also responsible for said pup?
on the OP - sorry, JC, especially for those who are unclear on ‘generally accepted etiquette for weddings’ (and there’s lots of places one can check out for that info), it is standard that only those who are listed on the invite are expected. I understand that this is difficult for you and your family due to the long distance and all, but I guess that’s how I would have phrased it to the friend “We’d like to go, but w/o having local grandparents to drop our darling off, we simply don’t have some one we know and trust to leave her w/for that length of time, you know you have our best wishes, though”.

82

And You’re assuming they know all these little details. You’re assuming that these customs are so commonly known that everyone on your list is familiar with them.

And I will grant you that adults and pets are not at all assumed… young human dependents, however, rely on their parents. And are often forgotten by well-meaning but scatterbrained invitation-writers. It’s a grey area. My point is that you should leave no grey areas.

I just don’t understand certain posters’ objections to relaying information to their guests that, obviously, THEYfeel their guests should know.

83

Oh, no no no no no. There are a galaxy of perfectly polite ways to reprove other people’s manners without actually reproving them. Trivial things are ignored, of course (except for setting your own example); less trivial things are dealt with with a gentle word that addresses the violation while avoiding the subject of manners (“Why, I don’t know, I’ve never asked her if she’s planning to have children”); repeated grotesque violations can be met with the Cut - ostracizing the offender completely; and threatening behaviour is addressed to the police.

84

Well, I explained that not many of my friends and family have had weddings during the span of my adult life. But you’re welcome to ignore that in favor of the ad hominem, of course.

And as for language - well, you see, we have these things called dictionaries that catalogue our language… they do not attempt to be proscriptive (as that would be presumptuous on the part of the dictionary’s author) but rather descriptive. Language evolves. While I could arbitrarily decide that some particular obsecene phrase was a compliment in my new language, I could not and would not assume that other people would interpret it in the same fashion. Similarly, when writing a wedding invitation, I would not rely on the guests to make guesswork based on archaic rules of etiquette that not everyone subscribes to. In both cases, the first more than the second, there exists the possibility of a cummunication breakdown… so I would feel the obligation as the speaker/host to explain the conventions that I’m using.

If I felt I should bring my child to a doctor’s appointment meant for me, I would do so. But I can guarantee I wouldn’t feel that way. You see, there’s this division between social and business. Now, as to the bar… it’s clearly a social situation… it’s also an entirely inappropriate place for a child because of legal statutes and the level of common sense belonging to a donkey … so most people don’t take their kids to a bar. However, if for some reason it’s not against the legal statutes where you live, and you wish to bring them there… (say you’re not going to get drunk, just stop by for a moment to ask a question of someone there) it is certainly permissible to bring one’s child, and not at all rude.

85

Why do I suspect that Miss Manners leads a double life as a Tax Lawyer? :wink:

86

CG, if you don’t feel that you know all the rules of standard American manners, it’s easy enough to find out. Go to the library and borrow a book on it. Miss Manners rescues civilization is pretty good, and she’s funny as well.

The way manners are supposed to be transmitted is by patient and repetitive dinning by parents. Sadly, that no longer happens as much–but we have books, luckily.

87

as do customs. which is, oddly enough, why we have these things called 'etiquette books" which one would (again, oddly enough) refer to, when one is embarking on ‘other than daily known’ behaviors. For example - I doubt that you refer to the dictionary when you’re reading your daily newspaper (at least for every word), you’d probably know most of the words there, and if one was a bit of a puzzler, you could look it up.

You most likely would be relatively knowledgable about daily common events, such as going to work, doctor’s appointments and shopping, but, when faced with something that one doesn’t do on a daily basis (like, say, plan or attend a wedding), one might consider checking out what’s ‘normally’ considered to be polite behavior, instead of assuming that one has all required knowledge at ones’ fingertips. if, of course, one would intend not to be blundering into rude behavior.

Of course, if one assumes that one’s own personal brand of etiquette is universal in nature, one assumes that no one else might have an alternate view.

88

If I may interrupt CandidGamera’s tirade against manners for a moment, I just wanted to agree with Sauron. The OP probably should have known that the kids weren’t invited unless explicitly stated on the invitation, but a wise bride and groom will follow up just to be sure it’s clear.

Far more important, however, is the need for the bride and groom to understand that placing restrictions of this sort may impede some guests’ ability to attend, and to be gracious about it. Don’t ask them why they can’t just get a babysitter, don’t make snide remarks later about how they didn’t attend your wedding. If it’s important to you that certain people attend your wedding, make sure your plans are compatible with their ability to attend.

89

Matt, that was brilliant.

Sorry I haven’t been back but this seemed the sort of thread to let play out before I revisited. Sort of letting the populi vox, if you get me.

Now, allow me to visit some issues.

It is not at all clear to me that this ‘accepted standard’ of invitations is actually in play. If you’ll revisit my second post you’ll see that the last three weddings I’ve attended did not mention children on the invitation yet children were expected to attend. Those weddings occured over the last 3 years meaning that Baby Kate (now really a kid) was in attendance for all 3. These weddings occured between people in their 20s and 30s and were all first weddings. So it’s not clear to me at all that what I’m being told here is the accepted standard is either accepted or standard.

And there’s the crux of the biscuit. As Mangetout said the problem here is one of communication. To all those who say that making explicit that children are not invited would be ‘tacky’ (and who uses that anymore? I feel like it’s 1982 in here.) I would offer that it’s far more acceptable to be explicit than vague. And in this case it would have saved much wear and tear.

Also, those thinking I’m rude (which I do try not to be) not in my OP that I was attempting to apologize for the confusion when the groom became (in his words now…more below) ‘huffy’, God help me. At no time did I wish to place Chris under any extra strain (though stress is no excuse for rudeness). Our discussion went something like this:

Day one (via AIM):
Me: Yo, Chris! You there?
C: Yeah. What’s up?
Me: What’s the deal with kids at the wedding? Do you want them there or no? Because friend A just mentioned she was getting a babysitter.
C: No kids. Sorry, Ali doesn’t want them there.
Me: Hmm. That might be a problem because of our travel schedules. And Lady Chance isn’t wild about driving six hours and handing her off to a babysitter.
C: Well, let me see what I can do. I’ll call Ali.

3 or so hours later…

C: Spoke with Ali. We’re seeing if someone can watch Kate on site.
Me: Great man, let me know if I can do anything.
C: Yeah, I’ll let you know.
Me: OK, soon if you can.
C: OK

Day three (via email):

Me: Yo Chris! What’s the deal?
C (in reply a while later): About what?

Day five (via phone):

C: OK, we talked it over and if that’s the only way you can make it you can bring Kate.
Me: OK, hey I’m sorry for all the fuss. I just…
C: Look, I don’t want to argue about it. You should have known she wasn’t invited from the invitation.

All paraphrased but that’s the gist of it.

However…

Day six (via AIM):

Me: Yo, Chris! You there.
C: Sure.
Me: Would you two be happier if I just came? Lady Chance still isn’t wild about the trip (with the pregnancy and the kid) and told me to offer that she could stay here in Ohio so I could attend the wedding.
C: AIM sux. Call me.

At which point we spoke and professed our undying love for each other (you’ve got to love a man who’s held you when you’re puking)(trust me on that one). Chris said that he had nothing against Kate but there were some other kids he most assuredly DIDN’T want at the wedding (something others have told me) as they could be a problem. Whether he was letting me down politely or what who can say?

But, despite Lady Chance (actual) misgivings about the drive (lest you doubt me) we’ll be going. It WILL be a long day for me starting in LA and ending at a wedding reception in Maryland but sometimes fate gives one odd paths.

90

What guesswork? If the invitation says Mr & Mrs X, it’s very clear who is invited. The only guessing is on the part of those who assume that “and family” or the equivalent is automatically included. And neither the assumption nor the problem is limited to weddings or children , so it doesn’t really matter that you haven’t been invited to many weddings. I can’ t tell you how many times I got "Are (sibling’s names) also invited? or worse yet, siblings just showing up when I had birthday parties for my children.If I didn’t put their names, there is a reason. Like maybe the place can’t fit or I can’t afford an extra thirty people. If your name is on the invitation, you are invited. If it’s not, you aren’t. And if you think there might be a mistake ( your family always invites children, or maybe cousin Mary forgot that you moved in with your SO or didn’t even know you had one), you find out in a way that doesn’t look like you’re begging for an invitation or put presure on your host to extend one.

Children are dependent on their parents, but that doesn’t mean parents can’t or shouldn’t leave them in the care of a responsible adult once in a while. And if the parents can’t bear to go out socially without their children, they had better get used to missing a lot of events.

91

To those who say that “common sense” implies that children are invited, I would ask, what would common sense suggest as being the worst situation: not showing up with a wanted child, or showing up with an unwanted one?

To illustrate, I would like to suggest a scenario.

Mr. and Ms. Perfect have just received an invitation. It’s addressed to them only. They are considering what to do with little Krystelle.

Solution 1: They call the happy couple, who are up to their eyeballs in pew bows and flower arrangements. (This is why I’m getting married in a field with 20 people in attendance and then holding the reception in a drag club, by the way.) Mr. and Ms. Perfect are gambling that the children actually are invited, because if they’re not, that puts the stressed-out fiancés in the position of having to come up, on the spot, with a nice way of saying "don’t you dare bring your rug rat within 100 yards of our damask tablecloths - " not a nice sentiment to have to say out loud.

Solution 2: They assume that little Krystelle was meant to be included. They show up with Krystelle and are instantly mortified to find out that she was not invited. Whether little Krystelle behaves herself perfectly or (more likely) not during the service, this will cause a spectacle when they arrive at the reception to find there is no place set or meal prepared for her. Instant massive resentment on everyone’s part against everyone.

Solution 3: They assume little Krystelle is not invited. They send in a letter saying, “Rebecca Perfect/and/Jonathan Perfect/accept with pleasure/the very kind invitation/of/Mr. and Mrs. Bride/for Sunday, the second of May.” (Which they should be doing anyway.)

One of two things then happens:

a) One of the fiancés calls up and says, “Listen, I just got your RSVP. Did we really not invite little Krystelle? That’s awful. We definitely wanted her to come. If you haven’t made plans for her already, please bring her. It would be a treat to see her.” This is done. Since little Krystelle has such sensible parents, she refrains from shrieking throughout the recessional or making innocent but loud remarks that are interpreted by the congregation as dirty; or if she does not refrain, the happy couple have nobody to blame but themselves.

b) Nothing happens. They arrange a sitter (bearing in mind they have received this invitation in early February) and go to the wedding by themselves. This serves the additional purpose of being their first night alone together in a good six months. The worst that can happen in this case is that the more tender-hearted of the two fiancés says, “But where’s little Krystelle?” “Oh,” says one of the Perfects, “we found a sitter for her. We didn’t know she was invited.” (It would be marginally more tactful to omit the last sentence.) “Oh, that’s too bad,” says the newlywed. “We wanted to see her.” “Well then,” is the answer, “you’ll just have to come and have dinner with us as soon as the dust has settled. I know she’d love to see you.”

And everyone lives happily ever after.

92

And there’s the crux of the biscuit. As Mangetout said the problem here is one of communication. To all those who say that making explicit that children are not invited would be ‘tacky’ (and who uses that anymore? I feel like it’s 1982 in here.) I would offer that it’s far more acceptable to be explicit than vague. And in this case it would have saved much wear and tear.
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There’s something that’s not clear to me- how do you know that the children were expected to attend those other three weddings even though there was no mention of them on the invitation? Sure, you know children were there , but I never said anything directly about uninvited children (or anyone else) being brought anywhere. I would just make the “no kids” or “no extras” or “no substitutions” explicit the next time I invited the person - and only to that particular person. Just like we only told my one aunt “we invited your five kids, not two of your kids and three of their friends” the next time she was invited after doing just that. We didn’t add " No substitutions " on every invitation. That would have been insulting to everyone else who got an invitation.

My guess from reading the discussion you posted is that your friend wanted you and your wife at the wedding badly enough to tell you to bring Kate, but didn’t agree with you about whose fault the miscommunication was, thought your explanation was going to be that the invitation wasn’t clear, and didn’t want to argue with you about fault.

93

I don’t think it is at all self-evident that the kids are excluded by simple virtue of them not being explicitly named - don’t get me wrong, I can see the logic of ‘invited parties are named’, but I think it is all too likely that some new parents just aren’t going to realise that the invitation doesn’t extend to little 'un.

Yes, yes, this is technically entirely their stupid fault for not studying the etiquette books, but that is entirely NOT the point; the point is that, having missed the thrust of the message, they will turn up at the venue with the kid in tow and much awkwardness will ensue.

Communication needs to be effective (that is precisely what the fuck communication is about); otherwise you might just as well decide to say “bleep” and expect people to know that when you say (heck, when anyone says) “bleep”, what is really meant is “please would you pass the salt?” and berate anyone so ignorant as to pass the pepper.

94

Maybe this is something that needs to be re-clarified as society has evolved. My impression, incorrect though it may be, is that in the past there was a more rigid line between events where children were welcome and events where they weren’t, and people were more OK with that. If the trend now is that people assume the kids are invited unless it is clearly stated otherwise, maybe we should find a good way to state it clearly.

One good indication–most invitations will have a response card. Sometimes, in the less formal, bring-whoever weddings that I grew up around, the response card will have a line indicating how many people are coming. If that line is there, it’s probably OK to bring everyone. If it isn’t, and instead it just says “yes, we’ll be there”, you can pretty well assume that it’s just the people listed on the envelope. Otherwise, they don’t know how many of you are coming.

Still, I think a clear statement would leave less room for misinterpretation.

95

Except that the wedding invitation situation is more like me asking you “please pass the salt” and you passing the pepper. Miscommunications aren’t always the fault of the speaker. The number of misunderstandings and assumptions that can be made regarding wedding invitations (or any invitations) will require a list of rules such as " Only the people named on the invitation are invited . No children, no guy you met last week , no roommates, no houseguests, not your adult children who are living with you and their children. If multiple members of your family are invited, we invited those people and those people only. Do not substitute others for those in your family who cannot attend."
Sometimes, it’s less awkward to deal with the person or two who misunderstands than the many who will be hurt or insulted by getting such a list.

96

I agree with Mangetout’s aversion to etiquette. When my sister got married she informed me that is was impolite to congratulate the bride (it implies that she was lucky to have landed a guy). That horse shit wouldn’t have ever enterd her mind unless some “Lady Pilfington of Brunswick opon Chevotshire” type bitch hadn’t printed it in some dumb-ass bridal mag.

The proliferation of the more useless customs makes one want to abandon them all together.

You can bet that the groom got snippy with his response after he was shreiked at by the enraged bride.

97

And you can bet that the bride has spent weeks dealing with various people deluging her with explanations about how surely she doesn’t mean their children, how their precious little ones are different, and how they’re not coming if the kids aren’t invited, etc. You can also bet that she’s had it up to HERE :gestures about two feet above head: with the entire subject. There are multiple threads on this very subject every single day on every wedding-planning board in existence. The sheer relentlessness of some parents on the subject is, frankly, astounding. How to make it abundantly clear to the terminally clueless that only listed invitees are invited with being rude or condescending or tacky is a major point of discussion among brides.

I’m still in shock that I had to point out to a friend of mine that our drunken French Quarter wedding wouldn’t be child-friendly. I’m still not sure what part of staggering around the Quarter drunk and giving guys beads to drop their pants sounds appropriate or enjoyable for a toddler, but she was planning to bring the kid. I guess maybe she thought her husband would have a fun time sitting in the hotel room alone with the kid while everyone else was out partying. Or maybe she thought we’d scrap the bachelorette party plans and sit around the hotel room with the kid. I don’t know. All I know is that it was a delicate discussion, and that once I pointed out that I understood completely if they couldn’t come (after all, coming to a destination wedding is a lot of time, money, and effort whether or not you’ve got kids), she made the decision to leave the kid with her parents in about ten seconds.

(The ironic part about the whole thing is that not bringing the youngun greatly simplified their travel plans. They didn’t have to drive in the middle of the night so she’d sleep and not be cranky during the trip, and not having to have the car seat, extra luggage, etc. enabled them to drive down with another couple and share a hotel room. I’m still trying to figure out why somebody would automatically try to plan something in the most inconvenient way possible.)

Oh, and etiquette aside, it’s just plain stupid to congratulate someone one getting married. Congratulations imply that there’s some sort of accomplishment involved, and getting married is anything but. Any two adults of the opposite sexes who aren’t siblings or currently married to other people and have the money for a license can get married. It’s one of the easiest things in the world. Expressing good wishes is certainly appropriate, but congratulations not so much.

98

And the awkwardness will be entirely the fault of the person who is self-centered enough not to follow the social standard and assumes (there’s that word again) that everyone else wants the little un around all the time. With any luck, the awkwardness will be embarassing enough for the parents to prevent any future occurences. It’s not so much a matter of studying the etiquette books as one of common sense to figure out that children might not be welcome at formal events. If you don’t have common sense, that’s not my problem. Lack of planning on your part, emergency on my part, and all that rot.

99

Well, Jonathan, your first mistake was in not simply accepting his very direct and unambiguous answer the very first time you asked him to clarify the invitation. Once he explicitly said that kids were not welcome, you should have simply thanked him for the clarification and then discussed privately with your wife what to do. Instead, you whinge about what an inconvenience this will be for you, basically putting your friend in the uncomfortable position of having to either be a hardass and come off as rude right then, or quietly, but begrudgingly offering to see if there was anything he could do to accomodate your special needs.

And yes, I know that once he offered you wanted an answer as promptly as possible so whatever arrangements needed to be made could be handled, but then you persisted in bugging him about it for several more days. You may have been polite in your tone and you may see your offer to come alone as gracious (and I’m not saying they weren’t), but to the groom it probably came across as pestering and martyrish, at which point he didn’t want to have to shoulder the responsibility of your logistics problems so he just snapped that you should bring the kid if that was the only way to get you and your wife there. It wasn’t kind, but I can’t say really blame him, either.

All that said, it doesn’t make you an ogre or a bad friend or a bad person. We ain’t none of us perfect. So now you know you erred in assuming an invitation to you and your wife included your child and in pressuring the groom for a different answer than the first one he gave you when it didn’t suit you. No big deal, it’s not the end of the world. Time to forget about it and move on. And that means letting go of whatever annoyance you feel towards the groom for the tone he took with you after your persistence. You’re friends. You care about each other. Sometimes it’s better to let the little things go than to dwell on who was more right or more wrong or more miscommunicative or more snitty. You have your answer now; they’d really prefer children not attend. If it works out better for you and Mrs. Chance for her to stay home with miniChance, then graciously accept the invitation for one. If you both really want to go, you absolutely must not bring your child, as it’s abundantly clear that they’d really rather you not. Please do not impose her on them. And have a GREAT time!

100

Yes, ma’am! Lordy! Crazy Cat Lady that’s some gooooooooooooood preachin’!