I was always taught the first way - that the man should always be between the lady and the foot of the stair, in case she should stumble.
Also: never wear prescious stones before 6:00pm. This includes sea pearls, but not freshwater. To wear ones pearls before 6:00pm was to admit that they were “cultured pearls” and therefore inferior.
For men, never wear french cuffs or any sort of cufflinks before 6:00pm.
You have a full year after the wedding to send a wedding present.
One wears black for a year after the death of a spouse, five years for the death of a child, six months for the death of a parent or Grandparent, and between the death and the burial for the death of a friend. Given the number of my friends who have died and been buried at Arlington, (always a long delay for the funeral) I spent most of Desert Storm in black.
Go back farther and you didn’t jump straight from black into green or yellow - there was a period of “coming out of mourning” where wearing grey signified that while you were ready to socialize, you weren’t going to be dancing and perhaps certain topics of conversation would be insensitive.
Yeah, I think we are down to the sticklers on that one. The idea is that if you know someone well enough to get them a gift (attend their wedding/graduation/birthday at all) you know them well enough to be able to choose a thoughtful gift. Giving cash says “I had no idea what to give you/didn’t want to be bothers/ so I shoved a 50 in with the card.”
But nowadays (old fogey alert), the recipient is a little relieved not to have gotten toe socks from Grandma, and Grandma is relieved not to be required to guess that leg warmers became out of style a year ago.
Bah. If I wear a hat, it’s because it’s part of the outfit, not necessarily for warmth. Why should I take it off? And where would I put it anyway?
I guess that makes me not much of a gentleman, but I prefer to follow rules of etiquette that are polite for reasons other than “it’s considered polite to follow this rule.” Holding a door open for someone so it doesn’t smack them in the face is just being considerate; standing up when a woman sits down at a table without pulling her chair out for her, less so.
I agree that giving and receiving money for gifts is not at all rude or inconsiderate. I am not so well off or priveleged that I have the nerve to get UPSET at someone for giving me money as a gift. And I have no problem when someone asks for money as a gift, I think it’s great to be able to give cash to someone who needs it.
Some of the old fashioned things that I wish were still around:
Naked gymnasium wrestling. How did this ever die out?
Putting coins on your eyes after you die. I don’t want to be stuck, unable to pay the price of the ferry!
Bloodletting and labotomies. Lots of people today could benefit from these practices.
No, thank-you notes are supposed to be sent promptly, certainly within a few weeks of the wedding, or any other occasion for which one receives a gift. As was mentioned already, a wedding gift may be sent any time within the first year after the marriage.
Frankly, I’d have been glad of an email or a phone call from my ungrateful niece and nephew (both in their 20s) last Christmas. I hand-knitting each of them an afghan, each taking more than a month of my evenings to complete. All I got from my niece when she happened to overhear me say 'afghan" to my mom was “I like my afghan.” No thanks, just that she liked it. And my charming nephew still hasn’t acknowledged it. I even emailed him and said “I assume you got it and I assume by your silence that you don’t like it. If so, please donate it to a homeless shelter where someone may appreciate it.” Still didn’t hear anything from him. Needless to say, neither one will get anything from me any more. [end rant]
Seriously, the time to thank someone for any gift is as soon as possible. It takes all of five minutes. “Thank you for the __________ . It was very pretty/warm/interesting/colorful/thoughtful. I appreciate you thinking of me. Yours, [insert name here]”
The actual rule, AFAIK, is that you have up to a year after the wedding to GIVE a gift, and it isn’t considered rude. A thankyou should come within a couple weeks of any gifts received.
Also, your neice and nephew are morons. I’d love a hand-knitted afghan any day!
I was taught by an old-fashioned etiquettista. There are tons of little behaviors that may be “the old fashioned proper way” but of which very few people are aware. Some of these are unobtrusive, and I figure I might as well do those just in case anybody around me is an etiquette snob and trying to decide whether to keep me in the will.
The gentleman should always follow his lady through a door after having held it for her. The one exception is revolving doors. The man leads through revolving doors because a proper lady likely lacks the upper-body strength to move them.
There’s an interesting history regarding the issue of which side the gentleman chooses to escort his lady. The super-old way was for the gentleman to be closer to the street, and the lady to be closer to the buildings. This protected her long skirts from gutters potentially filled with nightsoil. Later – i.e. in the last hundred years or so – it became more en vogue for the lady to be closer to the street, so that the gentleman could protect her from any rogues or cutpurses who might be lurking in alleyways. My understanding is that there currently is no consensus among the manners experts as to the current proper way to do it.
Nothing should ever be eaten while walking in public. (One exception - ice cream in a cone). Not a banana, not a corn dog, not a snack wrap. The proper gentle-person will sit to dine with only the aforementioned exception.
I agree with those above who note that the “old fashioned” proper way to do it is to hand write a thank you note for every occasion. Intimate dinner party? Thank you note. Wedding gift? Thank you note. Visited at the hospital? Thank you note. Mostly obsolete now, but I do know some people who still adhere to this and it always comes across as incredibly classy.
The gentleman should allow the maître’d to seat the lady, and only sit himself once she is settled. In the rare circumstance where one is seated without the assistance of the maître’d, the gentleman should seat the lady himself by pulling out her chair, and helping her push it in.
If it is a courting situation, the gentleman should appear bearing flowers. If it is a wrist corsage or nosegay, the gentleman should apply it to the lady’s non-dominant hand, so that she can dine with greater ease. If the gentleman should chance to apply it to the wrong wrist, it would be uncouth for the lady to change it.
According to my mother, when ascending stairs the gentleman leads, to assure the lady that he isn’t looking up her dress. When descending stairs, the gentleman also leads, to protect the lady from a tumble should she be overcome with the vapors.
I recall something, probably a MAD Magazine article, stating that a gentleman should walk on the street side in order to protect the lady from drive-by shootings.
More realistically, it would make sense for the gentleman to be streetside, particularly in rainy weather, in case a car splashes through a puddle and throws water up onto the sidewalk.
I don’t know about that. MTV had a series “My Super Sweet Sixteen”, and quinceaneras (15th birthday parties for girls) still seem to be very popular among certain groups of Hispanics.
RE Etiquette
I agree with Miss Manners ‘The true purpose of etiquette is to make everybody feel comfortable. If a guest mistakes the fingerbowl for soup and starts to eat it, the hostess should do so as well’
Thank you notes are important for certain things. Not out dressing the wedding party is polite. But many customs are based on the idea that women are weak and need protecting, and I’m glad these are fading out.
The variant I heard was that a couple was OK if they waited until after their honeymoon to send thank you cards (assuming the honeymoon was immediately after the wedding), but yeah, this.
I was just noting how culture-specific these “old fashioned” customs are. I mean, they’re hardly universal rules - someone from China or India, for instance, would regard them with utter bemusement.
Oh yeah. Definitely. VERY culturally specific. Get into an argument sometime about whether or not a dollar dance is appropriate (in most of Wisconsin - definitely - your great uncle will be hurt if he can’t slip you a five to dance with you - not so sure you can pull it off at a WASPy Waldorf Astoria wedding). But I’m still curious, there has to be some manners that are falling out of date culturally.
Depends on the culture, and whether we’re speaking of regular or wedding gifts. I grew up in a family where it was customary to purchase regular gifts but to give cash at weddings; it appears to different based on what ethnic traditions one follows.
At an uncle’s funeral a few weeks ago, the request was that all the mourners wear either hunting clothes or Steelers colors. If The Rules say that that’s a taboo, then The Rules are wrong. It’s supposed to be a celebration of the person’s life.
