andrewducker (
andrewducker) wrote2012-01-28 03:06 pm
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Addressing ettiquette and wedding stress
I'm sending out wedding invites at the moment, which is making me aware of all sorts of in-built biases in the conventions surrounding how we address people. I'm skipping over a lot of it by using first names for everyone, but even then there's a question of order. For older people I'm largely going with Male Partner, Female Partner, Children in order of age, but reversing the male/female order when the email address is for the woman of the house. For people nearer my own age I'm going with "Partner I know best->Partner I know less well, Children in order of age". Lesbians go in the order that I'm used to people putting them.
The whole invitation thing has been more stressful than I thought, largely because the venue has space for 80, and it turns out that Julie and I have 57 family members between us, so there are only 23 spaces for friends. This means that we've had to cut some cousins I haven't seen in 20 years, and restrict a few people to not having +1s if we're going to fit in even the people that we see/chat to on a regular basis, and a couple of really old friends. And the reception can take 30 more, but that still left us with 57 people that we don't have space for. I just hope people understand.
The whole invitation thing has been more stressful than I thought, largely because the venue has space for 80, and it turns out that Julie and I have 57 family members between us, so there are only 23 spaces for friends. This means that we've had to cut some cousins I haven't seen in 20 years, and restrict a few people to not having +1s if we're going to fit in even the people that we see/chat to on a regular basis, and a couple of really old friends. And the reception can take 30 more, but that still left us with 57 people that we don't have space for. I just hope people understand.
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Hope you get it all sorted out with the minimum of angst.
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In another amusement, your number of family members tickles me. I have all of 6. Mum, Dad, Sister, Gran and 2 cousins [one of whom fell terminally out with my dad years and years ago - that side of the family are like that].
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Yes!
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Don't put down any names atall?
Stick with the maritime convention of 'women and children first'?
I'm assuming this all comes before the other wedding trope of organising the seating so that family feuds and people with conflicting interests aren't put together; I've heard others declare this to be almost as stressful as any other component of the planning.
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Most wedding guides/anecdotes will tell you that 25-30% of people you invite won't be able to come. This was certainly our experience. Probably better not to count on it, though. Numbers are a headache, really. Ours were still changing up until a few days before as people suddenly weren't in the country/got ill etc. This is probably why the table plans were only done the night before. Not at all because I under-estimated how much stuff needing doing in the last weeks, oh no! :)
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And also: not all the family we invited came (shocker), in town friends were happy to have the late invite.
Family and first cousins alone, and we discouraged children, were 80 people.
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I got a phone call, "Ummm these Evil people? Am I supposed to write that?"
"Well. Julie divorced her husband about 3 years ago and I don't know if she still has his last name and then Julie and Ann got married 6 months ago and that made matters more confusing.... I call them Evil Mom and Evil Stepmom in person, that's their nicknames."
"Ahhhh.... Okay then."
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Everybody that matters anybody.
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One tip: (Reception length - 30min)/(Guests) = time you must spend talking to each guest.
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That said, I don't quite understand the organisation of weddings. Were I to get married, then unless my family were the ones paying for it all, I certainly wouldn't invite relatives who I last saw over a decade ago (two decades, in some cases). That said, the impression I get is that a traditional wedding is more an event (as far as the audience goes, rather than the happy couple) aimed at family than friends.
Luckily I am unlikely to ever marry!
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I saw one etiquette guide once that attempted to explain that "Mr John and Ms Jane Smith" was just WRONG and you should, nay MUST, put "Mr and Mrs John Smith" because, LOL, addressing people how they like is bad or something now? (I know two married couples who would prefer that style of address, but it's not really a sensible default-assume these days). Amusingly though they had a whole list for the correct ordering to use for partners with more unusual/interesting titles (can't remember it all though; and anyway how many couples do you know who are "Ambassador and General"?).
(I also have oodles of relatives... however I don't actually like many of them. Lucky for them I'm not getting hitched, so they don't have to be snubbed.)
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We invited
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Er, by height?
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It is sad that there has to be a set limit though. My brother's wedding was that way because it was at a place specially made for weddings and his wife and her family were all about proper etiquette. All the other weddings I have attended were wide open venues...my favorite was in a park where there was room for hundreds of people, no seating arrangement, etc.
Whatever the case..it will be you and Julie's special day..enjoy, be happy, and make a wonderful life together!
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(There's a lead in for another joke there should someone wish to take it.)
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I have precisely 4 family members coming so most of the Boy's Irish relatives are not getting an invite because otherwise it would be my four plus hordes of Irish folk, the vast majority of whom I've never met, and no friends at all! We have been able to put our foot down about this because we are paying for everything ourselves, and by agreeing to have a party in Belfast for his Dad's side at some point...
Several local friends are currently on the evening only list but may get bumped up to full invites if some of my old uni friends can't make it.
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MLW and I (more MLW) have family who we felt ought to invite but were pretty sure wouldn’t come we we sent out their invites early and asked them to RSVP in good time to add additional friends to the main invite list.