Category Archives: Etiquette News

Don’t Send Your Bridal Party to the Poor House

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I feel like this will be my most used image.

I feel like this will be my most used image.

I read this recent post over at A Practical Wedding with my jaw dropped and my pearls clutched. Basically, a reader wrote in that she had agreed to be a bridesmaid in her friends wedding and when she found out that the dresses the bride had her eye on for the bridesmaids were $7,000-15,000 she told the bride she couldn’t afford that and would bow out of being a bridesmaid, the bride flipped out and disinvited her from the wedding altogether and ended their 15 year friendship.

Regardless of whether this rings true or not, this is appallingly bad behavior on the brides part. The letter writer did the right thing 100%- she brought up her budget and said that the dress wouldn’t work for her and that if the bride was set on the dress, she was happy to bow out. She could have even suggested a cheaper option and still been fine.

It is absolutely not okay for a) a bride to pick out a dress without taking her bridesmaids budgets into account, especially given that one option could easily account for 1/2 of someone’s take home pay and b) berate that bridesmaid c) end a friendship over someone having to drop out of being a bridesmaid for financial reasons.

Honestly, if a $15,000 dress seems like a reasonable expense to you, you should pony up and pay for your bridesmaid’s dresses yourself!

Frankly, the bridesmaid has dodged a bullet. Can you imagine what the bride would have wanted for her bachelorette???

What’s the most unreasonable wedding expense that has ever been asked of you?

Some Thoughts On Talking About People

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It’s a pretty known thing that gossip is rude, but that doesn’t really matter, because we all do it. It’s rude but often it’s catharsis, and even if you love the person you’re talking about, sometimes you need a safe space to ask why are they like that? or omg I’ve noticed that too. But when does discussing the particularities of our friends and colleagues turn into something hurtful?

There’s that explicit rule of if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. As you’ve probably learned, that doesn’t really work IRL. There’s also more of an unspoken rule that if you wouldn’t say something to the person in question’s face, don’t say it behind their back. That’s certainly a better rule to follow, but still tricky, since maybe you don’t think that you’re saying will cause hurt feelings, but to the other person it does.

I find that I’m very attracted to gossip. Perhaps it’s the journalist in me. I’m curious about everyone’s business because I just want to know what’s going on in the world (and maybe I suffer from FOMO). I’ve been trying to stick to that latter rule by not just saying things that’d I’d only say to someone’s face, but also assessing why I would or wouldn’t say something to their face.

I’ve also been wrestling with what to do when people around me are gossiping or trash talking and I don’t want to participate. To be fair, there’s a bit of a spectrum, with “neutrally discussing someone” on one end and full on trash talking on the other, but what to do when I find myself in a situation when people are saying mean things about someone. Firstly, I try to see if the things they’re saying are true, because it’s rude to stand by while lies spread. If they are true, I see if the tone is actually mean, or if I’m just a sensitive baby who doesn’t like anyone using anything but the most loving tone toward my friends/acquaintances/someone I heard a nice thing about once.

I’d like to say that if someone’s being needlessly mean, I stand up to them, but usually I don’t. I get nervous and quiet and try to change the subject. This is not really advice. But my journey into gossip has left me with one tip: be aware of who is around you. People may have different relationships to the person you’re talking about. People may not know if what you’re saying comes from a place of love and understanding. Create context for your criticisms so they don’t seem like needless bashing, and accept that even if you have negative thoughts about someone, someone else may have a lovely relationship with them.

Or just hide and a cave and don’t talk about anyone, whatever.

In which I have a breakthrough in music-without-headphones-in-public etiquette

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Put those headphones on!

You guys. I figured it out. Last night on the bus a woman sat in front of me and was trying to listen to a audio of Fun Home on her phone, without headphones. For the record, I’d estimate she was in her 40s or 50s, so shut up about millennials. She held the phone’s speaker directly to hear ear, but everyone within about 15 feet could hear the audio.

A younger man leaned across the bus aisle and asked if the audio was coming from her, and when she confirmed, he asked her to shut it off. She did, but rolled her eyes, and gestured to my husband and I that that man must be the unreasonable one. “I can’t believe him,” she said. “Well,” I said, “generally you should be using headphones for that.” She responded “If I have to hold it up to my ear I don’t think anyone else can hear it.”

DID YOU HEAR THAT, DEAR READER? PEOPLE WHO DON’T USE HEADPHONES GENUINELY DON’T THINK ANYONE ELSE CAN HEAR THEM.

I sort of refused to make eye contact for the next two stops as she continued to grumble, but my mind was racing. This is the problem! I sort of understand it. I’m extremely guilty of eating/crying/picking dead skin off my lips on the subway, assuming no one outside of my personal bubble is aware of my actions. It’s easy (maybe) to see how that attitude can extend to noise. So let us make it perfectly clear in case you were operating under this assumption: everyone can hear you, cut it out.

How To Announce You Aren’t Changing Your Name

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Your DJ works for you and should follow whatever script you give them. [Via ]

Your DJ works for you and should follow whatever script you give them. [Via]

Recently, A Practical Wedding had a question for a reader about how to let her vendors know she wasn’t changing her name and how she and her husband should be announced at the reception. And like so many etiquette and wedding questions, the solution felt obvious to me. For the vendors, you simply tell them (although, most of them won’t really need to know as they are doing most of the work prior to the wedding?). They are people you have hired and should therefore address you as you prefer.

For the wedding and reception itself, during the ceremony, you can always skip the “I now present Mr. and Mrs. HisLastName” part. And as for the reception, personally I find the big boxing match style introduction with much clapping of hands and stomping of feet to be tacky (especially when you pair up the bridal party and announce them as couples when they are not and make them run in doing some stupid dance or cheer…), but that is a personal preference and it certainly not wrong by etiquette, so you can skip it if you want to skip the whole issue. If you DO want to do a big entrance to the reception, you can have the MC say something like “the happy couple!” or “the Bride and Groom!” or just your first names. It’s your wedding, everyone knows who you are, so no need to get formal with last names!

Of course, none of these options are informing your guests that you are keeping your last name. You don’t HAVE to make an announcement, simply just keep using your name they way you like it. You can give strong hints by using a return address sticker or stamp with your full names on it. Or perhaps include a little card with your thank you notes that says something like “our marital address” with both your full names and your address (this is especially good if you weren’t living together before the wedding or if you are moving shortly after.) You can also just correct people as things come. Like, getting a check addressed to Jane HisLastName when you are Jane YourLastName- call them back and be like, oh, by the way, I’m keeping my last name, luckily the bank was very understanding about depositing the check.” Or just be a little abrasive and say, “Hi Grandma, I’m soooo sorry, but since my last name is Jones not Smith, the bank won’t take the check you sent…”

Now, the be perfectly honest, you are probably going to have to fight assumptions for a few years unless you happen to have really awesome friends and family. Just be firm and consistent with correcting your name and they should get it down eventually. (And you will definitely still get junk mail addressed to the wrong name, but just throw it in the trash and get your anger out!) Or not- my grandma still calls my mom by her childhood nickname that she hates even though she has been going by another name for 30+ years, so.

The New York Times is Wrong- Parties Are Not Dead

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Holly Golightly managed to throw quite a party in a small space with no money.

Holly Golightly managed to throw quite a party in a small space with no money.

Recently, the New York Times’ Style section continued it’s trend for being tone deaf and out of touch by declaring “The Death of the Party”. I made a particularly frustrated noise upon seeing it as I had JUST thrown a party the previous week.

The author, Teddy Wayne, says: “The incidence of house parties in America (and sections of Canada) thrown by and for those in their 20s, the prime years for adult socializing, may be dropping for a raft of technological, economic and cultural reasons.”

Now, I am on the older edge of the “millennial generation” but my experience has absolutely been full of parties. I went to many a raging house party full of underage drinking and shenanigans in high school thanks to some friends with remarkably obliging parents. In college, I was in a sorority so there were plenty of parties there, but even if I wasn’t, Tulane was a party school and there was no lack of them. I even attended Stanford for a semester due to some…hurricane problems, and even they had some particularly wild parties. And now as an adult in New York, it’s almost a constant cycle of parties- some in apartments and some out at bars.

Wayne sites David Foster Wallace’s famous prediction “It’s gonna get easier and easier, and more and more convenient, and more and more pleasurable, to be alone with images on a screen,” which is true, I suppose. But if my Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds are any indication, it’s all of our friends being out at parties and other fun social events that are giving us FOMO rather than pleasure.

He does point out a fear of party throwing saying that these days a keg and some discount chips just don’t cut it, interviewing one girl who said “As for alcohol, her friends have top-shelf taste. “Now it’s bourbon — and not just any bourbon.” Which…can be true, honestly. I throw parties and I can easily spend a hundred dollars or more on food and beverages. But that’s because I like to put out a really nice spread. In my experience, people are perfectly happen to bring things to share and don’t REALLY care that much about what you serve (and if they do, maybe you need better friends?). If hosting at your own apartment is too much, it’s really easy to “host” the festivities at a bar. Definitely in the millennial age group, no one sees anything wrong with that and plenty of people like the excuse to come out as long as someone is doing the actual organizing. It may technically be “rude” to invite people to a thing and then not pay for everything, but who cares when you are in your 20s (and now that I am going to be moving on up into my 30s, I am seeing that age bracket as not so stodgy either!)? Jaya and I usually throw an Uncommon Courtesy anniversary party every year at a great tiki bar and everyone always has a great time.

Meeting at a bar also solves the problem that Wayne proposes that with rents in NYC so high, the younger crowd is all spread out over the city and going from your house in deep Brooklyn to a party in Astoria can take ages and many subway transfers. To that I say pffft anyway. Are these people really that lazy? Didn’t we all move to New York to not stay at home all the time (and I say this as a major homebody!)?

Anyway, I challenge all of you to pick a date, throw a party, invite everyone you know, don’t worry about space or food. It will be fun! And invite some Times reporters, as they don’t seem to get out much.