That shows you how important these three books are to me.
One is a picture album of my recent trip to Italy.
The second is The Bible.
And the third is Emily Posts's Etiquette book. Not sure which edition, but it's been thumbed through for about seven years now.
The last one is essential in my life. I consult it on presents, on hosting a dinner party, on conversation guidelines. Everything.
So naturally, last fall, when a friend told me she'd been invited to a very shee-shee wedding, but was confused because there was no RSVP reply card in the invitation, I went straight to Ms. Post. And found to my delight that very proper wedding invitations do not include a pre-printed reply card (I won't tell you her thoughts on asking people's choice of entree!). Instead, one should hand write a reply back to the host of the wedding, giving your intent to attend or decline in the third person.
Here's an example:
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Smith
invite you to the wedding of their daughter
Jane Smith
to
John Doe
the 11th of October, 2003
at 5 o'clock in the evening
What you're supposed to write back is:
Mr. and Mrs. Michael and Maureen Petron accept with pleasure the kind invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Smith to attend their daughter's wedding on October 11, 2003.
As you can see, I was giddy with finding out this etiquette tidbit. A little upset that I didn't know it before my wedding (I had both a reply card, and I asked for choice of entree!), but excited to know the proper thing to do in case I was ever invited to a fancy enough occasion where there wasn't a reply card.
Yesterday, the day came!
In my "box" on our home desk, sat an invitation to a wedding reception in Nashville. The envelope was open, and inside was only an invitation and a directions slip. I was thrilled! I knew we were planning on attending the event, and now had a reason to show off that I was in the know on how to respond!
So I took out a piece of personalized stationary, and penned a response. Smiled the entire way to the mailbox.
Then last night I told Mike how excited I was that I was able to use my proper etiquette on the response!
(Is anyone yet seeing where this is going?)
To which he replied, "What are you talking about? I sent in the reply card to that wedding weeks ago. I was just tired of it being in my box on the desk, so I put it in yours."
What!?!? Let me count the things wrong with this situation!!
1. Mike replied to a wedding invitation?? Since when does he do things like that??
2. The invitation ended up in my box because he wanted to clean out his... by filling up mine??
But SSSOOO the worst:
3. We already replied to this wedding and now I sent a silly note in the third person that's going to make NO SENSE to the hosts whatsoever??? They're going to get my note and think I'm crazy!!
Ms. Post might be proud, but I'm just embarrassed!
3 comments:
This is one of the funniest things I've read in a while. Really classic.
My reply was going to be different before I got to the punch line. But I may as well share my original thought anyway:
Here's my beef with wedding invitations. Brides and grooms spend so much time, effort and money making the perfect wedding invitation. They pick the perfect paper, ink color, envelope lining, and font. Then they agonize over the text, buy the perfect stamp for the outer envelope and the reply card and insert a dainty piece of tissue paper, put all the pieces in perfect order, and on and on, ad nauseum.
And then they sit at their Dell PC, open up Microsoft word, type out directions to the church, from the church to the reception and from the reception back to the hotel. Then they print it out on their office laser printer, on 20 lb white 8.5 x 11" office paper, fold it three times and jam it into the perfectly themed invitation.
Yuck.
One must wonder what on earth wedding guests did before brides and grooms put directions in their invitations. Perhaps they called the bride's mother, or they looked on a--gasp--map. Today, it's SO much easier to find places with Google Maps. And everyone has a wedding website now, why not put the directions on there!? Why do we need to spoil our invitations with directions?
As I see it, there are a couple of options:
1. Let people be adults and figure it out on their own.
2. Have a nicely designed and matching directions card inserted into the invitation (expensive).
3. Send an additional mailing to guests that are coming with directions (not very expensive, because you know you're going to print it at work and use work envelopes).
Sorry Maureen, this is your blog, not mine.
JB
Spoken like someone going through the agony of wedding invitations right now!
Thanks for posting the comment, though! I've gotten e-mails (not comments) from three lurkers laughing at this story. Glad you're all getting Friday pleasure from my embarassment!
I am still laughing about this, but I am laughing with you, not at you. I feel like I am in on it with you since the original puzzlement over no response card :)
I promise you can RSVP in the third person to my nursing home wedding.
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