The etiquette misunderstanding here is that the MIL thinks she is informing DIL of must-be-followed rules of etiquette, when in fact she is merely pushing her own old-fashioned point of view.
I say it’s a disagreement. You say it’s a misunderstanding.
I say off-the-shoulder wedding dresses are appropriate. You say that it is a breach of etiquette for the bride’s shoulders to be exposed.
Are we having a disagreement or a misunderstanding?
A disagreement.
I have my mom’s 1948 copy of Emily Post’s “Etiquette” - I love it.
- Women don’t smoke on the street
- There once was mourning stationery (had a discreet black border)
- Mourning phased from blackblackblack to blackblack to black to dark grey to grey. You were really swingin’ to wear lavender.
- Wedding gifts were displayed at the bride’s home for public viewing - even the checks. You put black pieces of paper over the amounts, and then put a heavy piece of glass on top of them to discourage nosy aunts
There are tons more, but those leap to mind.
UT
Sorry if this has been posted, but I believe it used to be that gift givers had a year to send a gift. This goes way back to when couples (especially those in society) had extensive honeymoons of weeks or months.
Thank you notes were meant to be written and sent pronto.
UT
Ooh - another one.
Ladies and gentlemen in evening clothes should not wear wristwatches. That’s what pocket watches are for (for gentlemen), and a lady asks a gentlemen for the time.
UT
Wait, I thought the thank-you note was supposed to say how much you were enjoying the gift. It seems kind of insincere to send off the thank-you before you’ve gotten a chance to do so.
Huh. Never heard that. Someone gives you something, you say “thank you for giving me this.”
Part of the “polite lie.” Half of all thank you notes are insincere anyway.
Dear Aunt Sarah,
Thank you for once again thinking of us this Christmas by sending us one of your delicious fruitcakes. Christmas just wouldn’t be the same without it.
Hope to see you in the New Year,
One etiquette rule for church I always hated was wearing dress clothes and/or suits and ties. It is supposedly to show respect for God. I don’t dress anywhere near that formally in regular day to day life, and feel like I am showing more respect for God by making my worship time an integral part of my daily life, instead of pretending to be somebody I’m not for a few hours a week because of traditions. I usually wear a neat pair of jeans and a decent polo-type shirt, or a sweater if it’s cold. Very casual, but neat.
Regarding cash bars at wedding receptions:
Where I live, if you have an open bar, and a drunk driver kills or maims someone, you get sued.
If you have a cash bar, the catering company gets sued.
Not many families are willing to take the risk, just to please the family drunkards.
The one time I got a wedding invitation by e-mail, I liked it. The attachments included maps to the reception, maps to the church, instructions for getting through security (the church was on a military base), and other information you don’t get in a traditional invitation.
One part about this that’s always puzzled me is: what counts as “indoors”? If I walk into a department store (or even, gasp, a mall), do I have to remove my hat?
What is the polite thing to do if you have one or more guests who actually have a drinking problem? I’m not talking about the recovering alcoholic who is used to functioning in a world with alcohol, I’m talking about Uncle Lou, who loves a drink and can’t wait to hit that bar and always makes an ass of himself. Do you not serve alcohol? Do you have people babysit him and cut him off? Do you not invite him, or eject him when he starts getting obnoxious?
I’ve gotten maps in traditional wedding invitations before, and it seems like I always have, if it’s needed.
I’m sure Emily Post would say it’s not ‘proper’, but I don’t see anything wrong with it.
Curtseying seems to have been discarded as a ladies’ gesture in general, though it makes sense, in a way, because you basically can only do the gesture when wearing a dress or skirt, and nowadays women and girls aren’t guaranteed to be wearing a dress or skirt and thus you might be in a situation where some of the ladies can curtsey and some can’t, which is awkward. It does still seem to be part of “how to be a lady” stereotypically in pop culture, and I believe that I have seen Lisa Simpson curtsey to one of Homer’s acquaintances.
The equivalent gentlemens’ gesture, which, iirc, is bowing, still seems to be done somewhat but seems to be restricted in usage compared to, say, the Victorian era.
It’s not necessarily any indoor place, but certainly a private home, or restaurant. In an open public area that is equivalent to being outdoors, such as a mall, you can consider it outdoors (but perhaps not inside a store). A gentleman removes his hat in an elevator when there is a lady present (not sure what the generalization of that rule is).
some of the things i picked up from a WW2-era german military cadet’s book of etiquette:
- remove the paper wrapping from the boquette before entering the room to give it to the recipient lady.
- always hold the boquette with the stems pointing down and the flowers on top.
- enter and leave a room facing the people inside.
- in ascending stairs with a lady, the lady goes up first with you close behind her. be ready to catch her if she falls.
- in descending stairs with a lady, walk ahead of her slowly so that she is right behind you.
- do not hold the stair bannister.
- when walking on the sidewalk with a lady, stay nearest the curb, even when there are several ladies in your company.
- when enganged by a lady to a conversation outdoors, stop walking and take off your hat.
- when walking though a crowd or uneven ground with a lady, lead the way. offer your hand to keep her from being separated.
- absolutely no facial expressions when n the compny of ladies or distinguised gentlemen / officers.
No. 10 seems a bit drastic. None at all?
ask any military man if an officer or segeant brooks them. personally, a scowling tiger-look is bad but acceptable if done uniformly by an entire unit.
This is the same woman who asked me what Icelanders do for Christmas, then when I told her, looked at me like I said we ate babies after ritually raping them, then singeing their skins over the bonfire. Put in a nice way, it was a misunderstanding that not everybody has the same traditions. 
In a not so nice way, she reacted very inappropriately to the response to her question, which didn’t make me feel so welcome on my first holiday season with my SO’s family after making a big effort to be polite.
So she was being an unpleasant old beeyotch. No misunderstanding there. Just plain bloody-mindedness.