Bad Manners and Brimstone
General Etiquette => Weddings => Topic started by: Aleko on August 20, 2019, 07:31:28 am
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A few days ago most of the UK newpapers reported on a recent survey of UK wedding trends which apparently shows that modern British brides tailor their wedding arrangements to optimise Instagrammable moments (no surprise there) but also that the proportion having page boys in the wedding party has dropped to 38 per cent and that only 48 per cent even have child bridesmaids. There was a good deal of online comment on these articles, and one Times reader innocently contributed a real doozy:
How sad that people are designing their day for Instagram .....
We also did away with a wedding breakfast - had a lovely canapes reception and then "went away" about 6pm. We reconvened in a private room in a restaurant with a handful of close friends...much more economical and also more intimate. And meant we had some meaningful and memorable conversations!
Now I think most of us would agree that you just don't invite people, for any reason, to give up a day and travel long-distance to celebrate any life event without feeding them decently. 'Economy' doesn't come into it: if you can't afford to feed a large crowd a high-end meal, you either trim the guest list or go for a less ostentatious menu. What you don't do is give them a few cocktail blinis and things-on-sticks and leave them to get themselves a burger on the way home. Even less should you do so with the clearly implied message; 'You lot can go home now; we want to spend the rest of the evening with the people we really like'. And she clearly hasn't a clue about any of this.
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I've known of three couples who did the 'handful of close friends in a restaurant' thing - but that was the entire wedding, not a 'select' few after other people had been sent home (once their contribution had been made to the photographs and gift haul, presumably?).
They can't realise how much bad feeling that must store up for them in the future, can they?
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A few days ago most of the UK newpapers reported on a recent survey of UK wedding trends which apparently shows that modern British brides tailor their wedding arrangements to optimise Instagrammable moments (no surprise there) but also that the proportion having page boys in the wedding party has dropped to 38 per cent and that only 48 per cent even have child bridesmaids. There was a good deal of online comment on these articles, and one Times reader innocently contributed a real doozy:
How sad that people are designing their day for Instagram .....
We also did away with a wedding breakfast - had a lovely canapes reception and then "went away" about 6pm. We reconvened in a private room in a restaurant with a handful of close friends...much more economical and also more intimate. And meant we had some meaningful and memorable conversations!
Now I think most of us would agree that you just don't invite people, for any reason, to give up a day and travel long-distance to celebrate any life event without feeding them decently. 'Economy' doesn't come into it: if you can't afford to feed a large crowd a high-end meal, you either trim the guest list or go for a less ostentatious menu. What you don't do is give them a few cocktail blinis and things-on-sticks and leave them to get themselves a burger on the way home. Even less should you do so with the clearly implied message; 'You lot can go home now; we want to spend the rest of the evening with the people we really like'. And she clearly hasn't a clue about any of this.
I agree that if you expect people to travel to your wedding you should host them afterward properly. Was there another part of the story where the commenter stated the differential between the number of guests who attended the wedding and canape event versus the numbers who were invited to dinner? I had always thought the custom in the UK was for a smaller group at the morning wedding anyway.
But then I also grew up in the South where a "cake and punch" reception was perfectly acceptable. But we also didn't have lots of out of town guests. If you did,they were usually family and being hosted anyway.
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I'm all for simplifying weddings and being financially responsible. Some of the loveliest weddings I attended were simple and held in the home of the bride's or groom's parents.
I think that having two tiers of guests in order to save money is a problem. I'm not that familiar with Instagram, but I find it interesting that the commenter thought it was terrible that other couples took Instagram into account, but the commenter thought it was okay to have less important and more important guests. Wanting to have an intimate celebration with the family members and friends who are closest to the couple is great, but that should be their guest list.
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You know I agree... fiscally wise weddings = AWESOME!!! Only feeding the favorites = tacky. :(
I read an article (maybe it was posted here or the old site) about a couple that wanted to do the more intimate sit down dinner thing with guests, so they flew to various cities throughout the year and had mini-receptions with various family and friends. It was super cool! Not a money saving idea, though.
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I agree that if you expect people to travel to your wedding you should host them afterward properly. Was there another part of the story where the commenter stated the differential between the number of guests who attended the wedding and canape event versus the numbers who were invited to dinner?
No: the bit I left out was simply about their having bucked the apparent trend by having child attendants, and how lovely that had been.
I had always thought the custom in the UK was for a smaller group at the morning wedding anyway.
No, it's not the custom. It's acceptable, to be sure, when necessary. E.g:
- Especially in big conurbations, if the ceremony is at one location, say in the town centre, and the reception at another, e.g. a country house hotel just out of town, it can be simply unfeasible for 100 or more guests to drive to the ceremony, park and attend, then retrieve their cars and drive to the reception. (Almost all British town centre layouts pre-date the internal combustion engine; in many cases just navigating into or out of them by car, let alone parking in them, requires local knowledge, skill, and killer instinct.) Especially if it's a registry office wedding, many couples opt out of sheer necessity for having just their parents and best friends come with them to the ceremony in a taxi or two, and meet their guests at the reception.*
- If the actual venue chosen for the ceremony, e.g. some tiny 10th-century church or a private chapel, is simply too small for all the guests, some people will have to be invited to the reception only.
- If it's a religious wedding, and either the denomination concerned doesn't care to have non-members at its ceremonies, or it's felt that some of the guests wouldn't be comfortable attending, for whatever reason.
But if no such practical reasons applied, people would be surprised - I would be, anyway - to be invited to the reception only.
*Though a year or so ago I was invited to the wedding of a friend's daughter at her family's parish church in the outer London suburbs, then their reception in the ancient hall of one of the City of London livery companies. They made this feasible by hiring two red London buses to take the guests from church to reception, and one to ferry back again all those who had got to church by car rather than public transport.
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especially in big conurbations
con·ur·ba·tion
/ˌkänərˈbāSH(ə)n/
noun
plural noun: conurbations
an extended urban area, typically consisting of several towns merging with the suburbs of one or more cities.
"the major conurbations of London and Birmingham"
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I thought more about this.
I believe that as long as you host them in some way and make it apparent what that hosting is, it is fine to limit the hosting.
As a guest, you can decide if you'd rather not attend if you felt the time and cost commitment was too much for a simple after wedding reception. Or you could think "Yeah, I only have to give up my Saturday morning for the wedding and then we can spend the afternoon visiting that museum in the area and try out that great new bistro that has been getting so much press." Or "yeah, we can spend the afternoon visiting your cousin George since they only live an hour away."
I'm trying to make this sound mean because I know in many cultures it is very much looked down upon to not host wedding guests in a very lavish style. But I know I don't select which weddings to attend based on how I will be hosted.
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I believe that as long as you host them in some way and make it apparent what that hosting is, it is fine to limit the hosting.
I absolutely agree. I'm all for moderation in wedding costs, and if all they can afford by way of a meal for everyone they care about enough to invite to their wedding is bangers and mash, that's absolutely fine. But I think if people are coming from all over - and weddings where the bulk of the guests live locally are increasingly rare - it's only decent to spend the budget on a simple but sustaining meal rather than 'lovely posh canapes', which means they end up eating greasy lukewarm burgers in a motorway service station on the way home.
Even so, if this bride had decided that canapes was all they were going to serve, I'd forgive her. It's the decision that only 'a handful' of her guests rated more than a a few canapes and a couple of hours of her radiant presence, that is shocking.
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I believe that as long as you host them in some way and make it apparent what that hosting is, it is fine to limit the hosting.
I absolutely agree. I'm all for moderation in wedding costs, and if all they can afford by way of a meal for everyone they care about enough to invite to their wedding is bangers and mash, that's absolutely fine. But I think if people are coming from all over - and weddings where the bulk of the guests live locally are increasingly rare - it's only decent to spend the budget on a simple but sustaining meal rather than 'lovely posh canapes', which means they end up eating greasy lukewarm burgers in a motorway service station on the way home.
Even so, if this bride had decided that canapes was all they were going to serve, I'd forgive her. It's the decision that only 'a handful' of her guests rated more than a a few canapes and a couple of hours of her radiant presence, that is shocking.
I see your point. Since I probably would have had breakfast before attending a morning wedding having a selection of canapes mid day would probably tied me over till my evening meal. But I do understand that others would be looking for something more substantial.
It's probably regional differences too. I don't see how having 20 of maybe 100 guests is having a A and B class guests especially since the events are far apart in timing. It's like having the rehearsal dinner with just family and close friends the night before or having a morning after brunch with just a few friends and close family. Usually not everyone invited to the wedding is invited to those in my area. And most guests wouldn't want to dedicate their time to attending those in addition to the wedding.
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I don't see how having 20 of maybe 100 guests is having a A and B class guests especially since the events are far apart in timing.
But they weren't far apart in timing! The canape reception lasted till 6 pm when the bride and groom 'went away', to signify that the reception was over. Here in the UK you'd normally sit down to a festive dinner, or any restaurant dinner, anywhere between 7 or 8, so they must have headed pretty much directly to their restaurant with their 'real' friends, leaving the B-listers to collect their coats and start on their homeward journeys at much about the time that they would normally have been expecting to be ushered into the wedding dinner.
It's like having the rehearsal dinner with just family and close friends the night before or having a morning after brunch with just a few friends and close family. Usually not everyone invited to the wedding is invited to those in my area.
No, it absolutely isn't. Those are separate events, which would require anybody coming any kind of distance to take days off work and stay in a hotel or find relatives to put them up for at least two days. .
Actually we don't normally have rehearsal dinners over here, because we don't have rehearsals, or at any rate never used to. What's to rehearse? It isn't a play. (I read a Regency romance a while ago and when the American author had dramatic events occur when the groom and his family 'arrived for the rehearsal dinner', imagining the amazement and distaste that Regency gentlefolk would have felt at the notion of rehearsing a wedding practically made me snort my biscuit through my nose with laughter.) But if any of my friends or family ever had to have any such thing, which none of them have, nobody other than the people who had been required for the rehearsal - i.e. the members of the wedding party - would expect to be part of it.
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Wasn't there a wedding rehearsal on Downton Abbey?
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Wasn't there a wedding rehearsal on Downton Abbey?
Don't ask me; I gave up on DA after Season 2 when the character-implausibility and social and historical inaccuracies got too much to bear. For a diplomat's son and the husband of an earl's niece, Julian Fellowes either doesn't seem to know very much about aristocratic life, or he's just made up him mind to write whatever guff will pass for the international market.
But a wedding rehearsal at Downton just makes no sense. For one, there was no 'making it personal' in weddings then; you just all went up to the church and walked up to the altar, the service took place exactly as it had done ever since the prayer book was published in 1662, then you walked back out again. Everybody had seen it dozens of times and knew exactly what to do. For another, it wasn't a show! None of the wedding party or the guests expected it to be slick as a stage number; a bit of shuffling around and mumbling wasn't an issue. The notion of being rehearsed for a wedding - just like actors or music hall artistes!!! - would have been unthinkably insulting.
Edited to add: if anybody knows which episode that was and where to find it on Youtube, I'd be interested to watch it. I honestly can't imagine what the scriptwriters could have dreamed up for the family to rehearse, given that they had been getting married in exactly the same way in the same church for generations.
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Actually we don't normally have rehearsal dinners over here, because we don't have rehearsals, or at any rate never used to. What's to rehearse? It isn't a play. (I read a Regency romance a while ago and when the American author had dramatic events occur when the groom and his family 'arrived for the rehearsal dinner', imagining the amazement and distaste that Regency gentlefolk would have felt at the notion of rehearsing a wedding practically made me snort my biscuit through my nose with laughter.) But if any of my friends or family ever had to have any such thing, which none of them have, nobody other than the people who had been required for the rehearsal - i.e. the members of the wedding party - would expect to be part of it.
Just an explanation of the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, in my area of the U.S.
The parents of the bride and groom and the wedding party would meet at the church, usually late afternoon. The priest did a run through of mother of bride, and groom's parents being escorted down the aisle to their pews. Then the wedding party practiced processing down the aisle to their pews. Then the priest went over the procedure for the couple to come up for their vows, when to come up, where to stand, etc.
When this was over, the people involved went to a restaurant for the rehearsal dinner. At most it was usually the wedding party, parents of the couple, siblings of the couple, and occasionally grandparents. The original purpose of it was for the people at the rehearsal to enjoy a meal together after the rehearsal.
Like many aspects of weddings, the rehearsal dinner has, in some areas, become a much larger occasion than it used to be.
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The rehearsal I participated in was less than 10 minutes. It basically just made sure that people knew where they would need to be and when which was especially helpful as this was a catholic wedding and not all of the wedding party (including me) were catholic. I felt better knowing what would happen so I wouldn’t accidentally mess up the ceremony.
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Wasn't there a wedding rehearsal on Downton Abbey?
Don't ask me; I gave up on DA after Season 2 when the character-implausibility and social and historical inaccuracies got too much to bear. For a diplomat's son and the husband of an earl's niece, Julian Fellowes either doesn't seem to know very much about aristocratic life, or he's just made up him mind to write whatever guff will pass for the international market.
But a wedding rehearsal at Downton just makes no sense. For one, there was no 'making it personal' in weddings then; you just all went up to the church and walked up to the altar, the service took place exactly as it had done ever since the prayer book was published in 1662, then you walked back out again. Everybody had seen it dozens of times and knew exactly what to do. For another, it wasn't a show! None of the wedding party or the guests expected it to be slick as a stage number; a bit of shuffling around and mumbling wasn't an issue. The notion of being rehearsed for a wedding - just like actors or music hall artistes!!! - would have been unthinkably insulting.
Edited to add: if anybody knows which episode that was and where to find it on Youtube, I'd be interested to watch it. I honestly can't imagine what the scriptwriters could have dreamed up for the family to rehearse, given that they had been getting married in exactly the same way in the same church for generations.
A quick Google search didn't turn up anything. I'll have to re-watch a couple of episodes to see if I can find it, or maybe I've imagined it. In the meantime, if you don't think that it derails from your thread too much, would you mind telling us Leftpondians what made Downtown Abbey codswallop besides a possibly-non-existent wedding rehearsal?
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In the meantime, if you don't think that it derails from your thread too much, would you mind telling us Leftpondians what made Downtown Abbey codswallop besides a possibly-non-existent wedding rehearsal?
Hi Jeanfrom,
Sorry for the delay responding to you! I had to refresh my memory banks, it being years since I stopped watching, and once I started - well, brace yourself for a screed...
There was just a constant stream of macro- and micro-assaults on historical accuracy. It started right from the beginning with the whole Cora/Robert relationship. He is supposed to be crushed with guilt about having married her for money: but (a) the British aristocracy had been marrying for money for centuries, and indeed would have thought it very selfish and irresponsible not to; and (b) she had married him for social status, which he and society at large would have seen as a very fair deal all round. Also, that whole plot point about all her money having gone straight into the Downton estate leaving her with nothing, is pretty much impossible. No properly-drawn up marriage settlement failed to settle a proportionate slice of money on the bride personally, so that if her husband squandered the dowry, or he threw her out of the house so he could live with his mistress, or - as in this case - failed to sire an heir so that after his death the estate went to a nephew or cousin, she would be comfortably provided for. (At least one commentator on Downton has described the series as one long whine by Fellowes against the male inheritance of peerages, as without that that his wife would be a Countess; and they had a point.)
The Downton household contains less than a quarter of the number of servants it would in reality have had. In 1912 Highclere Castle, the house where Downton was filmed, had 25 maids, 14 footmen and three male chefs! It's understandable that the production cast reduced numbers, not only on the grounds of expense but so there weren't too many below-stairs characters to recognise and relate to; but it did mean that the whole servant community was far more cosy and tight-knit - and far less regimented and hierarchical - than it realistically would have been. For example, the upper servants wouldn't even have sat down to eat with the rest; they would have had their own meals in the steward's or housekeeper's room and been waited on by junior servants.
Relationships between the family and the servants were also far closer and more casual than they would ever historically have been. Yes, a very few servant roles (valet, lady's maid, nanny) required intimacy with one of the family, and the senior servants (butler, housekeeper) might - not necessarily would - have been in the confidence of the master and / or mistress of the house; but the family would barely have known the names of most of the other servants, and might rarely have even seen many of them. The scene where the Earl, interviewing his new chauffeur Branson in the library, casually gives him permission to borrow books, is beyond ridiculous. A room like the library would have been totally off-limits to any servant who didn't have a job to do there; no house-owner would have cheerily let them browse and borrow books. (Heck, can you imagine any present-day millionaire allowing that?)
But in fact the whole Branson story arc is consistently absurd. He plans a criminal assault on a Downton dinner-guest, which is known to Carson, but doesn't even get the sack; he claims to be a socialist and Irish patriot but sits out the entire World War, the Easter Rising and the Irish War of Independence comfortably as an imperialist lackey (literally) in Downton without lifting a finger for it; then when he finally has to leave Downton on account of having tried to elope with one of the Earl's daughters (nothing less would have got him the sack) he swans into a good job with a Dublin newspaper, well-paid enough to allow him to support a wife, for which he can't possibly be in any way qualified - if he has any experience at all in writing or journalism it's at least seven years ago, and since then he has been rusticating in the Yorkshire countryside, not seeing anything at all of political life and events even in London, let alone Ireland.
The characters' attitudes are resolutely modern. Girls who get pregnant out of wedlock are sympathised with, not labelled as **** and turned out of the house. And while everyone except the youngest and most naïve of the servants knows that Thomas the footman is gay, nobody has a problem with this: they dislike him because he's a slimeball, not because they honestly believe that homosexuality is an abomination, "peccatum illud horribile, inter Christianos non nominandum" ("that horrible crime not to be named among Christians") as the majority of people at the time - including genuinely nice, kind people - honestly did. Indeed, the Earl not merely doesn't sack Thomas for making sexual advances to a new footman; he puts pressure on the lad to drop his (100% true) accusation of indecent assault, and promotes Thomas to under-butler! No, no, no, that would not have happened in period. Not unless the Earl himself was gay and deliberately hiring gay servants (safer; they couldn't shop him to the police or the press without outing themselves).
Clangers were constantly dropped in non-period language and manners. E.g. the butler and footmen wear white-tie evening dress during the day -and even out of doors! - rather than their daytime livery: a big no-no.
Glaring anachronisms, e.g: Mrs Patmore the cook. (NB that having a woman heading up the kitchen in an earl's household is itself implausible; a house of that status would have at least one male chef - as mentioned above, Highclere had three - paid a whole lot more.) She is going blind with cataracts (medically perfectly plausible); hides this because she dreads simply being sacked if her employers find out and ending her days in the workhouse (also perfectly plausible historically - many well-off people did sack their servants when they became ill or disabled, which should alert viewers to the untypical benevolence of the Crawleys). When her problem is discovered Robert pays for an operation for her (OK; it's untypical, but some employers were that generous). She then comes back to Downton wearing a pair of dinky dark glasses, sighted and able to work again, hooray! But the specs simply disappear shortly after her return, implying that she only needed them while she was recovering from the operation, and for the rest of the series she apparently has perfectly good sight. And that's ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE! The first cataract implant operation was in 1950 (and for decades after that it was a big-deal, complex, very expensive procedure, nothing like the outpatient deal it is now). Before that, all surgeons could do was remove the clouded lens. Literally just that. Without the lens, the eye couldn't focus and was permanently very long-sighted, so the patient was equipped with a pair of spectacles with lenses thick as jam-jar bottom, and peered through these. It wasn't brilliant, just a lot better than being blind.
And the issue of Robert - aged 48 at the outbreak of WWI - being 'too old to fight' and thus hanging resentfully around Downton all through the war was ludicrous. The Army was desperate for trained officers, especially ones with experience of active service; men who had fought in the Boer War, as Robert had done, were gratefully taken back on to the active list. He would have been about the average age for a regimental commander; many officers 10 or more years older than Robert commanded troops on the Western Front. And of course it wasn't only front-line officers that were needed; even men who really were no longer young or fit enough for that were in demand as staff and training officers (In fact, in real life there was a big training camp for recruits at Catterick near Ripon, which it's canon was the nearest serious-sized town to Downton. Robert was perfectly qualified to command that, and could still have been home to dinner every night.)
Fellowes also claimed that Robert was not called up because he was a landowner. That's not merely not true but amounts to a libel on the British aristocracy, who have always accepted that their one absolute duty and raison d'etre, the basis of all their privileges, is to fight for the monarch against his/her enemies. In 1910 every peer had personally sworn an oath to King George V at his coronation to do that very thing. And they did. They went to fight en masse; by the end of 1915 nine peers and ninety-five peers' sons had been killed in battle. In all, 24 peers were killed in action in the war.
Then there's the stupid bit where Robert is finally made Colonel of the North Riding Volunteers*, expects to go to France in command of them, and is utterly dashed to be told that it's only an honorary post. But the full Colonelcy of a Territorial regiment was, and is, always an honorary post! He's a local landowner, who acts as patron of the regiment, lets it use his estates for field exercises, gives dinners for the officers and awards the prizes for the marksmanship competitions. Robert could not possibly not have known that. (Indeed, it's a good question why he hasn’t been its colonel ever since he retired from active service; he's exactly the kind of person who would be offered the post. He would certainly have known whoever was Colonel, and known exactly what that entailed.) Also, as an ex-soldier himself he could not possibly have been unaware that for a honorary colonel to wear uniform other than on specifically regimental occasions is very, very bad form, and that he had no business whatsoever to be hanging around Downton in khaki.
*Never mind that the Volunteers were a 19th-century movement that had been completely subsumed into the Territorial Army long before the outbreak of WWI - they would have become a Territorial Battalion of a regular country regiment.
Fellowes decided to have the Downton Abbey household carry on their pre-war life for the first two years of the war, largely unaffected by it; it only starts to impinge on them in 1916. Which is absurd. Everybody had lost relatives in the war (certainly all the aristocracy), or at least had friends who had. There was a major 'servant problem', since able-bodied men were called up and women found they could get far better pay and conditions in munitions factories than in service. And, most of all, in rural Yorkshire where they live, a huge shocking atrocity took place - in December 1914 the German Navy shelled the Yorkshire ports of Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, destroying hundreds of houses and killing many civilians. Nothing like that had even happened before. The whole nation was rocked back on its heels, and people at Downton, just 50 miles inland would have felt themselves almost directly under attack.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_Scarborough,_Hartlepool_and_Whitby
One more thing (since I've probably bored you all to tears already): the Crawleys were strikingly selfish and unpatriotic during the war. Many great houses were turned into hospitals right at beginning of the war (including Highclere Castle, the real 'Downton', where the Countess of Carnarvon began fitting it out for the purpose before war broke out; it was taking patients already in September 1914), and scads of duchesses and their daughters trained as nurses and did real nursing work - assisting at operations, emptying bedpans, the lot; many of them behind the lines in France. The Crawleys' half-hearted effort, right at the end of the war, offering convalescent facilities to officers only, with two of their daughters providing a little ladylike bustling around, is pathetic in comparison.
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Not bored to tears at all! Would love this to be a separate regular thread. Still love the show , even though historical inaccuracies seem to run rampant. Do tell me more!
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Not bored to tears at all! Would love this to be a separate regular thread. Still love the show , even though historical inaccuracies seem to run rampant. Do tell me more!
I suggest you start a thread in the "Entertainment" topic under "The Brimstone Lounge - Off Topic Discussion" category. ;)
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Thank you for the long and detailed reply, Aleko. And to cap off the list of errors, I did re-watch Season 3, Episode 1, which took place immediately preceding Mary and Matthew's wedding, and they had a wedding rehearsal ;D. I remember thinking at the time that I didn't think that rehearsals were done back then.
Some of the soapy plots and plot holes were frustrating, but I admit to being a fan. It was so enjoyable to watch. My grandparents were in service at around the same time the series took place, and they brought to the U.S. some very English opinions of How Things Should Be Done at table and in the household. Watching Downton Abbey brings back fond memories.
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I’m a fan of Downton Abbey, but was tired of the social justice topics. I’m not really in need of being educated about social issues by the programs I watch on television, and most of those plot-lines were truly ludicrous. The jazz singer and cousin what’s her face, for example.
I was also constantly annoyed by how stupid they constant made Robert’s character.
As an aside, I know many Americans including me tend to romanticize that period in England. I was fascinated to hear one of my managers in England absolutely go off the ledge when I mentioned the show; he despises the whole idea. (But if you handed him an estate I’m sure he’d take it!)
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Aleko - thanks for the fantastic analysis of Downton's inaccuracies!
Back on topic, I thought it was quite common in the UK to have A lists and B lists for weddings. The A list guests get invited to the main part of the reception (eg a sit down dinner, and speeches, etc), and the B List guests join the party later in the night for dessert and dancing.
As an Australian, that always struck me as being rather rude, but I recall on the old boards, there were a few Brits who defended the practice.
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Aleko - thanks for the fantastic analysis of Downton's inaccuracies!
Back on topic, I thought it was quite common in the UK to have A lists and B lists for weddings. The A list guests get invited to the main part of the reception (eg a sit down dinner, and speeches, etc), and the B List guests join the party later in the night for dessert and dancing.
As an Australian, that always struck me as being rather rude, but I recall on the old boards, there were a few Brits who defended the practice.
The rule in the U.K. is that you can *add* people at each stage but you can’t remove them.
Therefore, everyone who is invited to the service must be invited to the next stage (usually the meal), some extra people will be invited to the second stage and then everyone from the first and second stages must be invited to the third stage which is dancing and perhaps a buffet.
Having a ‘pretend’ reception with canapés and then sneaking off with your *real* friends for a meal is just as shatteringly rude in the U.K. as anywhere else in the world.
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Sara Crewe, you pretty much nailed it.
I'd only add that there isn't always a third stage; an evening dance is not traditional. There are two reasons for this:
1: For well over a century the hours for weddings in England were restricted by law, to prevent people (such as eloping minors) sneaking off and getting a clergyman to marry them clandestinely at dead of night, or some other time they could count on nobody being in church to spot them. From 1837 a marriage was only legal if it was performed between 8 am and noon; then in 1886 the permitted hours were extended to 3pm; in 1934 to 6pm. It was only in 2012 that it became legal to marry at any time of day or night. But the Canons of the Church of England consistently lagged behind the law: DH and I got married in 1992 and the vicar told us we were in luck; a year or so previously the Canons had finally been updated to come into line with the 1934 legislation, so he was allowed to marry us at 5pm as we wanted.
So, from 1837 to 1886 nobody in England could get married except in the morning; after that the laws were successively relaxed, but right up to from 1886 to 1990-ish, anyone wanting a Church of England wedding still had to have it before noon. This meant that the 'wedding breakfast' started no later than 2, so by maybe 5 or 6 everyone would have had enough food and festivity; partying on till it was time for an evening meal and then dancing into the night would have meant 12 or more hours non-stop..
2: It used to be assumed (or at least valiantly pretended by one and all) that the couple had not previously been sleeping together, and therefore that the night of their wedding was The Big Night. So they needed to 'go away' early enough to get to their honeymoon hotel in time for that. 'Going away' was a big traditional event that has been almost completely dropped in the last two or three decades: the couple would slip off, change out of their wedding outfits and reappear in ordinary (but smart and new) day clothes, say goodbye to all their guests and get into their vehicle, which in the interim would have been decorated by the best man and his accomplices with ribbons, L-plates, a sign saying "JUST MARRIED", and old shoes on strings trailing from the back bumper, and everyone would stand on the steps to wave them off. That brought the whole thing to a natural end; a few gannets might hang on to hoover up the last of the food and drink, but generally the guests started going home. It's only since everyone has shed even the pretence that the 'wedding night' is an important rite, that bridal couples have felt able to party on into the night with their guests.
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I don't think it's legal to get married at home, or in your parents' or grandparents' house, in the UK (unless your grandma happens to own, say, Windsor Castle). Which is a shame, because I think that sort of wedding sounds charming. I guess one could have the reception at home, but the actual wedding would have to be in a licensed building.
I honestly cannot remember if we had rehearsal for my wedding, but the grand Rehearsal Dinner definitely was not a Thing then. Doubt it is now. I'm not really sure why the rehearsal is necessary, either. I mean, the celebrant conducts everybody through the wedding - it's not as though you are required to memorise a bunch of lines and come in on cue.
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Sara Crewe, you pretty much nailed it.
2: It used to be assumed (or at least valiantly pretended by one and all) that the couple had not previously been sleeping together, and therefore that the night of their wedding was The Big Night. So they needed to 'go away' early enough to get to their honeymoon hotel in time for that. 'Going away' was a big traditional event that has been almost completely dropped in the last two or three decades: the couple would slip off, change out of their wedding outfits and reappear in ordinary (but smart and new) day clothes, say goodbye to all their guests and get into their vehicle, which in the interim would have been decorated by the best man and his accomplices with ribbons, L-plates, a sign saying "JUST MARRIED", and old shoes on strings trailing from the back bumper, and everyone would stand on the steps to wave them off. That brought the whole thing to a natural end; a few gannets might hang on to hoover up the last of the food and drink, but generally the guests started going home. It's only since everyone has shed even the pretence that the 'wedding night' is an important rite, that bridal couples have felt able to party on into the night with their guests.
In addition, as the age at which people get married has risen, more wedding couples are hosting their own weddings. When DH and I got married, my parents were definitely the hosts. I had a going-away outfit, and we left when most people were still there. By the time DS and DDIL got married, they were the ones planning the wedding and reception, and were hosting it in a way that DH and I were not.
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I don't think it's legal to get married at home, or in your parents' or grandparents' house, in the UK (unless your grandma happens to own, say, Windsor Castle). Which is a shame, because I think that sort of wedding sounds charming. I guess one could have the reception at home, but the actual wedding would have to be in a licensed building.
OH! NO! I'm in the US and married my LDH in our home with a licensed pastor. I certainly hope the marriage was legal! All the paperwork said it was. LOL! It was a charming wedding with friends and relatives all attending. A good time was had by all.
What would a licensed building be? A courthouse? A church?
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I don't think it's legal to get married at home, or in your parents' or grandparents' house, in the UK (unless your grandma happens to own, say, Windsor Castle).
Actually it is, if you can convince the Archbishop of Canterbury that you really, really need to get married at home. For example, if you tell him that either the bride or groom is bedbound, or has an electronic tag and will be arrested if they leave their house, he will (hopefully) issue you a special licence to get married there. Such a licence is what's needed when a dying person in hospital wants to marry, or in any other case where it just isn't practicable for the wedding to happen in a regularly licensed place.
Which is a shame, because I think that sort of wedding sounds charming. I guess one could have the reception at home, but the actual wedding would have to be in a licensed building.
For a very good reason! Society at large needs to know who is legally married and who isn't; and getting married in a private house militates against this need. Up till 1753 you could get married in a private home or anywhere, and the result was that you could never be sure if someone claiming to be single was actually married, or vice versa. (Some people probably weren't 100% sure if they themselves were married or single.) Bigamy was rife, and there was a mass of marital litigation and wrangles over inheritance. All the 18th- and 19th-century legislation laying down the permitted times and places for weddings, and insisting on public notification of one's intentions to marry ("calling the banns") was aimed at ensuring that marriages were public. It's still the law in England that for a church marriage to be valid the church door must be kept open during the marriage service, so that anyone can walk in, to witness the act or object to it - you can't get married behind closed doors.
The vicar who married DH and me said, while explaining to us how to get the banns called, and that if we couldn't produce a valid banns certificate to show us before the day, the wedding couldn't happen, that while this might all sound like antiquated flummery to us, it still is important. He himself had once been conducting a marriage and when he said the bit about "if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace", a man spoke up from the back of the church: "I'm the uncle of the bridegroom's wife, and he's still married to her!" The groom lived in an inner-city district nowhere near anywhere his any member of his own or his wife's family lived, and had never set foot in the local parish church himself, so her reckoned it was safe to have the banns called there, as it was highly unlikely that anybody who heard the banns would know his name. But somebody did, and that person told his wife's uncle in time!
What would a licensed building be? A courthouse? A church?
Religious marriages can only be performed by a minister of religion who has been registered as an officiant and authorised by the Registrar General to conduct religious marriages. In other words, such an officiant is acting in a dual capacity, both religious and civil, and s/he has to do the legal paperwork accordingly. Where the minister is such an officiant, her/his church will be a lawful place for a wedding. That includes churches of most major Christian denominations, synagogues, Hindu and Sikh temples, and many others. If a minister is not so registered, the marriage has no legal validity and the couple will need to have a civil marriage ceremony as well to be considered married in the eyes of the law.
Until very recently, civil marriages could only be contracted in a registry office. Every district has one; it's where you go to register births, marriages and deaths ("hatches, matches and despatches"). The Registrar performs the marriage.
However, very recently (2012, I think?) this restriction has been relaxed and any suitable place, such as a country house hotel or historic house, may apply to be licensed officially as a wedding venue; a licensed officiant (civil or religious) comes out to it. However, weddings must still take place in a building (i.e. the wedding venue must have an actual address); you can't marry on a beach or a mountain top.
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Aleko, that was so interesting! Thanks for sharing that with us.
I guess in the US, the concerns that you raised are covered by having to have a license issued by the state and completed and filed by a legal officiant (government official; licensed clergy; other licensed, sometimes temporarily, person). The location is rendered irrelevant. Do you have licenses like that in the UK?
We don't have any requirement like banns, though; closest thing is the waiting period in some states after getting the license. Come to think of it, although I don't know if it is a legal requirement, local newspapers list marriage licenses granted, so if there is a waiting period, that serves the purpose. How nearby geographically must the banns be called?
Why no outdoor weddings in the UK? I guess you could probably have an official ceremony in a government office the day before and then do your wedding outdoors or in an unlicensed venue, couldn't you?
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The vicar who married DH and me said, while explaining to us how to get the banns called, and that if we couldn't produce a valid banns certificate to show us before the day, the wedding couldn't happen, that while this might all sound like antiquated flummery to us, it still is important. He himself had once been conducting a marriage and when he said the bit about "if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace", a man spoke up from the back of the church: "I'm the uncle of the bridegroom's wife, and he's still married to her!"[/b] [/b]The groom lived in an inner-city district nowhere near anywhere his any member of his own or his wife's family lived, and had never set foot in the local parish church himself, so her reckoned it was safe to have the banns called there, as it was highly unlikely that anybody who heard the banns would know his name. But somebody did, and that person told his wife's uncle in time!
Shades of Jane Eyre (or Four Weddings and a Funeral)! I've wondered if this ever happens in modern times.
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Society at large needs to know who is legally married and who isn't;
I have always maintained that marriage is about the couple's relationship to the rest of the world, and not so much about their relationship with one another.
Because you can be totally committed and not married--yet the greater world will not treat you as a legal couple (no health insurance, no automatic inheritance, no joint property...).
And a married person can cheat, or move out, etc.--yet the greater world will still treat you as a legal couple.
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Society at large needs to know who is legally married and who isn't;
I have always maintained that marriage is about the couple's relationship to the rest of the world, and not so much about their relationship with one another.
Because you can be totally committed and not married--yet the greater world will not treat you as a legal couple (no health insurance, no automatic inheritance, no joint property...).
And a married person can cheat, or move out, etc.--yet the greater world will still treat you as a legal couple.
Exactly.
Ever hear of Frankie Lymon? Had a big hit in the 50's. "Why Do fools Fall In Love?" Apparently Lymon liked to fall in love and get married. but he neglected to get divorced. When he died, at age 25, there were three different women claiming to be the widow, claiming to be entitled to inherit his estate. A court had to decide who was the real Mrs. Lymon.
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Society at large needs to know who is legally married and who isn't;
I have always maintained that marriage is about the couple's relationship to the rest of the world, and not so much about their relationship with one another.
Because you can be totally committed and not married--yet the greater world will not treat you as a legal couple (no health insurance, no automatic inheritance, no joint property...).
And a married person can cheat, or move out, etc.--yet the greater world will still treat you as a legal couple.
And remember that while it may not be as significant today, being able to slide off from one family and marry someone else could leave women and children destitute. Not to mention the issue of inheritances, which could sometimes be the difference between poverty and a reasonable comfortable lifestyle.
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Society at large needs to know who is legally married and who isn't;
I have always maintained that marriage is about the couple's relationship to the rest of the world, and not so much about their relationship with one another.
Because you can be totally committed and not married--yet the greater world will not treat you as a legal couple (no health insurance, no automatic inheritance, no joint property...).
And a married person can cheat, or move out, etc.--yet the greater world will still treat you as a legal couple.
Exactly. I always say too that a couple's decision to NOT get married is one that comes with consequences socially, whether it is "fair" or not. For a great many people and institutions, unless and until people take the affirmative step to become legally joined in marriage, they are simply not as "committed" as those who have not taken that step.
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I have always maintained that marriage is about the couple's relationship to the rest of the world, and not so much about their relationship with one another.
Very true. Marriage has always - and when I say always, I mean for at least four millennia, and probably more - been first and foremost a public matter. Are these two people in a fully-paid-up marriage? A morganatic marriage? A state of concubinage? Just casually-hitched-up-for-the-time-being? Because the familial and inheritance ramifications of that status have important implications for other people - e.g. are their children legitimate, and entitled to inherit their father's property and social status? It's only very recently that the couple's emotional investment in each other, if any, has been an issue at all.
Because you can be totally committed and not married--yet the greater world will not treat you as a legal couple (no health insurance, no automatic inheritance, no joint property..)
No, it won't. And why should it, if they aren't willing to confirm to the world that they are and wish to be a legal couple? Indeed, how could it know for sure if they were and they did? Would anyone be happy, if say one of a couple died in a work accident, for the survivor's entitlement to compensation, a widow(er)'s pension et cetera to be assessed by an official with a clipboard coming round and checking how long they had lived together, how many long-term purchases they had made jointly, and asking the neighbours if they seemed fond of each other?
And a married person can cheat, or move out, etc.--yet the greater world will still treat you as a legal couple.
The same is true of business and professional partners - if one partner cheats or runs off to the Bahamas with the partnership's funds, the partnership still legally exists and the other partner is still responsible for its debts and other obligations till they can officially wind it up. That doesn't lessen the validity of business partnerships.
Exactly. I always say too that a couple's decision to NOT get married is one that comes with consequences socially, whether it is "fair" or not. For a great many people and institutions, unless and until people take the affirmative step to become legally joined in marriage, they are simply not as "committed" as those who have not taken that step.
Me too. A few years ago a British soldier was killed on active service and his unmarried partner applied for a widow's pension and was refused it. She went to law, and ultimately the MoD caved in and gave it to her. I'm still uneasy about that. It's almost like marrying them posthumously with him not able to object (the way Mormons 'baptise' their long-dead ancestors - if I were a long-dead ancestor I would be fit to be tied about that). Every soldier going to a war zone must think about what will happen to his loved ones if he doesn't come back. The welfare officers must have spelt out in good time to the troops being shipped out to Afghanistan that 'widows' pensions are for widows - if you ever plan to marry your partner, think about getting a licence and doing it now'. But he didn't.
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Aleko, that was so interesting! Thanks for sharing that with us.
I guess in the US, the concerns that you raised are covered by having to have a license issued by the state and completed and filed by a legal officiant (government official; licensed clergy; other licensed, sometimes temporarily, person). The location is rendered irrelevant. Do you have licenses like that in the UK?
We don't have any requirement like banns, though; closest thing is the waiting period in some states after getting the license. Come to think of it, although I don't know if it is a legal requirement, local newspapers list marriage licenses granted, so if there is a waiting period, that serves the purpose. How nearby geographically must the banns be called?
Why no outdoor weddings in the UK? I guess you could probably have an official ceremony in a government office the day before and then do your wedding outdoors or in an unlicensed venue, couldn't you?
Hi Gellchom, sorry to have missed this when you first posted it! Here goes:
No, we don't have licences of the kind you describe. We don't need clearance from the state to get married (and the idea of having to have a blood test is just unthinkable); it works the other way around. You decide whether you want to have have a civil marriage performed by a public servant, i.e. the registrar (this constitutes the legal part of your marriage; this done, you can go and have any kind of religious - or humanist or Jedi - ceremony you like, which may indeed be more important to you personally but has no legal significance); or a religious marriage performed by a minister who is also, as part of his post, licensed to perform and register legal marriages. The officiant, civil or religious, acts on behalf of the state in making the marriage legal, and carries out any necessary checks. This is why here we have no such thing as a temporarily-licensed officiant; the actual responsibility is so great it has to be a trained person whose job description includes this role.
Banns of marriage are of very ancient origin - there's a wiki article about them. I don't know if any other Christian denominations in the UK currently require them, but no Church of England wedding ceremony can legally take place without the couple producing either valid certificates of banns being called, or a Common or Special Licence from the bishop or archbishop exempting them from that requirement.
CoE banns must be called in the parishes where the bride and groom are resident, the idea being that their families and neighbours are the people most likely to know whether they are free to marry or not. NB that a CoE parish is a geographical area; every inch of England and Wales is part of one or another parish, and everyone who lives in a given parish, whatever their religion or none, is technically a parishioner and entitled to be married in the parish church. In fact, between 1753 and 1835 Christians of any denomination (except the Quakers, who were granted a special arrangement very early on) could only legally be married in a CoE ceremony, which meant that Catholics and Dissenters who wanted their marriage to have any legal recognition (e.g their children to be legitimate) were obliged first to be married in their own chapel in the face of their own congregation, then trot along to the parish church for a second ceremony.
In the case of civil ceremonies, obviously you have to apply well in advance - I think at least three weeks, but don't quote me - and if your application is accepted and the place and time of the ceremony fixed, the Notice of Marriage is publicly posted up until that time, which fulfils the same object of publicising the intended marriage.
NB that while England-and-Wales are a single entity for legislative purposes, Scotland has an entirely different legal system and legislation applying to one entity often doesn't apply to the other.*
The 1753 Marriage Act didn't apply to Scotland; until 2006 you could still become married gradually "by cohabitation with habit and repute" (living together and calling yourselves husband and wife), and until 1939 you could marry any time you liked simply by making a public vow followed by consummation. No banns period necessary. This, BTW, why eloping English couples in 18th and 19th-century romance novels - and in reality too** - routinely jump into a fast coach and belt up to Gretna Green (the first village over the Border) with the girl's father or guardian in hot pursuit. If they can race into the the Gretna blacksmith's forge gasping 'Please witness our marriage vows right now! We'll make it worth your while!' and straight afterwards hotfoot it up the inn stairs to a hired room and have sex, their marriage will be irrevocably legal and the lady's guardians will be foiled.
In Scotland a whole different set of laws applies (there's a wiki article, Marriage in Scotland) and there it is legal to get married in the open air. I really don't know why the 2012 legislation for England-&-Wales prohibits this, though it wouldn't surprise me if registrars up and down the land didn't lobby the parliamentary working party as a body when the Act was being drawn up, saying 'We don't mind having to travel all over the place to carry out our duties, but we draw the line at carrying them out in the rain. If you don't specify in the legislation that the ceremony has to take place under a proper permanent roof, we'll all resign!'
* The discrepancies can be major: for example, until 1949 the penalty for treason in Scotland was hanging, drawing and quartering; if any of the handful of British traitors from WWII had been tried in Scotland, that would be the penalty to which they would inevitably have been sentenced. England (and Wales) had abolished this penalty (which hadn't actually been carried out in full since 1782) in 1870.
**Captain Lord Cochrane RN, an amazingly dashing and successful sailor whose career and exploits were the model for Jack Aubrey's in Patrick O'Brian's wonderful series of novels, eloped with his beloved and got married in just this way.
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I just checked and it says notice is up for 28 days (I always thought it was three weeks and 1 day from when we got married - but it's either changed or I made it up)
Notice is given both where you plan on getting married (geographical area) and where you both live - if you both live in the same area where you are marrying it's all done on one notice
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I wouldn’t really call it “clearance” we are getting from the State. We just walk in and fill out a piece of paper and give them a small fee. On the paperwork in the state where I was married we had to affirm we aren’t related and aren’t already married. There is no longer a blood test in that state. It’s a state license obtained in a local government office run by the city/county. The license is good for 30 days or thereabouts. We gave that to the minister.
Our minister filled out the marriage certificate after the wedding and our witnesses signed it, then he filed the paperwork in the local courthouse, same place we had applied for the license. We could also have taken the completed documents from him and returned them ourselves. The minister also has to have a license to conduct marriage ceremonies and along with that he would have been instructed about the requirements for marriage to be valid and where to file the paperwork.
In the US, in most States you have to obtain a license to do all kinds of things. Cutting hair, for instance. Selling food. Updating your home. Even to have a yard sale.
I find it kind of neat and wild that every person in an area is considered a CoE member of their local Parrish and can get married there. That definitely wouldn’t fly here either on the side of the people nor on the side of most churches!
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No, it won't. And why should it, if they aren't willing to confirm to the world that they are and wish to be a legal couple? Indeed, how could it know for sure if they were and they did? Would anyone be happy, if say one of a couple died in a work accident, for the survivor's entitlement to compensation, a widow(er)'s pension et cetera to be assessed by an official with a clipboard coming round and checking how long they had lived together, how many long-term purchases they had made jointly, and asking the neighbours if they seemed fond of each other?
I have sometimes said, when people complain that their longtime sweetheart, with whom they don't live, isn't being included when spouses would be or are: They're not your spouse. If you want them to be treated like a spouse, you have three avenues to achieve that: Get engaged, move in together, or get married.
People will say, "You shouldn't be judging our relationship!" but in fact, that's what they're asking you to do. With an engagement, cohabitation, or marriage, THEY are the one declaring how serious that relationship is.
If you're dating only, no matter how long it is, you are asking other people to make some OTHER judgment about how serious your relationship is. Because you have not used the three signals that our culture recognizes, and now you are asking them to use their decision and not your declaration (because your declaration says the opposite, actually--you've dating a long time and haven't gotten married; what do your actions say about how serious you are?)
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Exactly. I always say too that a couple's decision to NOT get married is one that comes with consequences socially, whether it is "fair" or not. For a great many people and institutions, unless and until people take the affirmative step to become legally joined in marriage, they are simply not as "committed" as those who have not taken that step.
You've been dating for 5 years? That means for 4 years at least, every morning the two of you get up and decide to not get engaged or get married, and at least 4 times (when your lease ran out), you decided to not live together. What do your actions say?
Me too. A few years ago a British soldier was killed on active service and his unmarried partner applied for a widow's pension and was refused it. She went to law, and ultimately the MoD caved in and gave it to her. I'm still uneasy about that. It's almost like marrying them posthumously with him not able to object (the way Mormons 'baptise' their long-dead ancestors - if I were a long-dead ancestor I would be fit to be tied about that). Every soldier going to a war zone must think about what will happen to his loved ones if he doesn't come back. The welfare officers must have spelt out in good time to the troops being shipped out to Afghanistan that 'widows' pensions are for widows - if you ever plan to marry your partner, think about getting a licence and doing it now'. But he didn't.
I would have much the same reaction.
Conservative Christians like to say that marriage is under attack from gay people who want to be able to marry. I think the institution of marriage IS under attack, but it's not from the people who say "marriage is special and we want to be able to be a part of it."
It's from the people who insist on having "domestic partnerships," or who want the financial or social perks of marriage without marrying.
There is some middle ground probably, and we're working it out as a culture. But if marriage means something, then it means something.
Re: your story of the widow:
In NYC, a cohabiting couple applied to purchase a co-operative apartment. With a co-op, you actually don't purchase an apartment; you never own it. You purchase shares in a corporation that are assigned to the apartment, and owning them gives you the right to occupy and modify (as well as the responsibility of upkeep).
Since you are essentially joining a business partnership, the other shareholders get the right to approve you as a business partner. So you have to have a certain financial strength (savings, earnings, etc.), credit score, personal reputation, etc.
In this couple's case, the woman had enough earnings and savings to qualify. They approved her as a buyer. The guy did not, and because they were not married, the co-op had to evaluate him on his own; he was rejected as a buyer. He WAS approved as a tenant, which meant he could live there.
The corporation said, "If you were married, we could count you as a single legal entity, and you'd both be approved. But since you're not married, and the man has no legal claim to the financial assets and income of the woman, we can't approve him.
"This is a business decision based on legalities; we aren't judging him as an unfit person, and we'd be happy to have him live here."
The couple claimed it was discrimination against them on the basis of marital status and sued.
I hope they lost.
And we are LONG way away from eliminating the wedding breakfast!
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I agree with Toots, as usual. I respect people's decision not to get married.
Socially, the only thing it really means to people who aren't related or have some legal or property interest at stake, is whether or not we must consider a couple as a social unit -- i.e., if you invite one, you must invite both, to events like weddings and dinner parties (not things like girls/boys night out, book club, showers, reunions, work parties, etc.).
And there is a rule on that, and it's what we all know: married, engaged, and, recently added, living together as a couple (as opposed to just as roommates). Prior to recognition in all states of same-sex marriage, many same-sex couples fell into this category as well if they were living together or had had some kind of commitment ceremony -- now, in the US, they are in the same social boat as everyone else. It is NOT about affection or seriousness or the length of the relationship; it is about formal status. As Toots points out, if it were about judging the seriousness (or, heaven help us, the quality) of the relationship, then the couple is indeed asking others to make a judgment about their relationship.
And I think that what a lot of people miss in the discussion is that the "social unit" rule is a minimum. Hosts are perfectly free to consider this or that couple (and even a poly group) as a social unit and invite accordingly. Most of us do. There are many elderly couples who do not marry or move in together for all kinds of pragmatic reasons but who definitely behave as a social unit, even always hosting together (that joint-hosting thing is often a benchmark for me). There are many other kinds of cases that just about anyone would agree should be treated as social units. But that doesn't change the rule.
Similarly, hosts are free to invite couples together that they do not consider to be a social unit.
So the only issue is whether or not they are violating etiquette if hosts do not invite both to "social unit events." And no matter how much you love your sweetheart and how long you have been "together," and no matter how much better your relationship is than your married friends', if you aren't married, engaged, or cohabiting, they aren't. If it is that important to you for others to have to treat you as a recognized social unit, then become one.
After all, if society is required to respect marriage and engagement, then it should also be respecting the choice not to be married.
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I wanted to come out of lurkdom to say that sometimes there is a reason people can't get married or live together. My other half has spina bifida and when we moved in together the government took away his disability benefits, saying that together our income was too high. My other half and I are lucky right now because both of us are working and have pretty decent benefits through our jobs, but others are not so lucky. I do know people in the disabled community who will never live with or marry their significant others because the government will take away what little benefits they have. Not trying to be snarky, but just wanted to point out another side that abled-bodied people may not see.
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I wanted to come out of lurkdom to say that sometimes there is a reason people can't get married or live together. My other half has spina bifida and when we moved in together the government took away his disability benefits, saying that together our income was too high. My other half and I are lucky right now because both of us are working and have pretty decent benefits through our jobs, but others are not so lucky. I do know people in the disabled community who will never live with or marry their significant others because the government will take away what little benefits they have. Not trying to be snarky, but just wanted to point out another side that abled-bodied people may not see.
I have seen this several times, and I've seen it many times with seniors . Would like to be married, but can't afford it.
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I wanted to come out of lurkdom to say that sometimes there is a reason people can't get married or live together. My other half has spina bifida and when we moved in together the government took away his disability benefits, saying that together our income was too high. My other half and I are lucky right now because both of us are working and have pretty decent benefits through our jobs, but others are not so lucky. I do know people in the disabled community who will never live with or marry their significant others because the government will take away what little benefits they have. Not trying to be snarky, but just wanted to point out another side that abled-bodied people may not see.
I completely agree. This is a perfect example of what I meant by “There are many other kinds of cases that just about anyone would agree should be treated as social units.”
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I wanted to come out of lurkdom to say that sometimes there is a reason people can't get married or live together. My other half has spina bifida and when we moved in together the government took away his disability benefits, saying that together our income was too high. My other half and I are lucky right now because both of us are working and have pretty decent benefits through our jobs, but others are not so lucky. I do know people in the disabled community who will never live with or marry their significant others because the government will take away what little benefits they have. Not trying to be snarky, but just wanted to point out another side that abled-bodied people may not see.
I completely agree. This is a perfect example of what I meant by “There are many other kinds of cases that just about anyone would agree should be treated as social units.”
I'm so sorry, I went back to re-read your post and I see that now! After a while it feels like people are being bashed for not getting married, and I wanted to point out that there can be good reasons why. And, honestly, if someone doesn't want to get married "just because they don't", I respect that, too. If someone didn't want to treat my other half and I as a social unit just because we aren't married, I would have no issues cutting that person out of my life or, at least limiting contact. Luckily, the people we know don't seem to think that way. :)
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I wanted to come out of lurkdom to say that sometimes there is a reason people can't get married or live together. My other half has spina bifida and when we moved in together the government took away his disability benefits, saying that together our income was too high. My other half and I are lucky right now because both of us are working and have pretty decent benefits through our jobs, but others are not so lucky. I do know people in the disabled community who will never live with or marry their significant others because the government will take away what little benefits they have. Not trying to be snarky, but just wanted to point out another side that abled-bodied people may not see.
I completely agree. This is a perfect example of what I meant by “There are many other kinds of cases that just about anyone would agree should be treated as social units.”
I'm so sorry, I went back to re-read your post and I see that now! After a while it feels like people are being bashed for not getting married, and I wanted to point out that there can be good reasons why. And, honestly, if someone doesn't want to get married "just because they don't", I respect that, too. If someone didn't want to treat my other half and I as a social unit just because we aren't married, I would have no issues cutting that person out of my life or, at least limiting contact. Luckily, the people we know don't seem to think that way. :)
I think for a lot of people the issue is expecting to be treated the same as married people when people have made the decision NOT to marry for whatever reason. I don't think anyone needs to validate or defend their choices to anyone else. I think they just need to own it.
It's kinda like people who say, "A degree is just a piece of paper. I know way more than this guy with a PhD and I never went to college." It could very well be true that the high school graduate is smarter than the PhD, or knows more about a particular subject. But the high school graduate is NOT a PhD. Pointing that fact out is not saying the high school graduate isn't smart. It is saying she is not a PhD.
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I think for a lot of people the issue is expecting to be treated the same as married people when people have made the decision NOT to marry for whatever reason. I don't think anyone needs to validate or defend their choices to anyone else. I think they just need to own it.
It's kinda like people who say, "A degree is just a piece of paper. I know way more than this guy with a PhD and I never went to college." It could very well be true that the high school graduate is smarter than the PhD, or knows more about a particular subject. But the high school graduate is NOT a PhD. Pointing that fact out is not saying the high school graduate isn't smart. It is saying she is not a PhD.
But some days it does feel like people do need to defend their decision not to get married. I'm seeing a lot of that attitude here: don't expect to be treated the same as a married couple if you choose not to get married. I've seen other people post (not necessarily here) that they would consider someone in a relationship single because they had not married their other half, even if they've been in a committed relationship for years. I'm only pointing out that some people are unable to get married (or even move in with their spouse) because of financial issues that are no fault of theirs. Unless I've been misreading everything, in which case I apologize.
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I think for a lot of people the issue is expecting to be treated the same as married people when people have made the decision NOT to marry for whatever reason. I don't think anyone needs to validate or defend their choices to anyone else. I think they just need to own it.
It's kinda like people who say, "A degree is just a piece of paper. I know way more than this guy with a PhD and I never went to college." It could very well be true that the high school graduate is smarter than the PhD, or knows more about a particular subject. But the high school graduate is NOT a PhD. Pointing that fact out is not saying the high school graduate isn't smart. It is saying she is not a PhD.
But some days it does feel like people do need to defend their decision not to get married. I'm seeing a lot of that attitude here: don't expect to be treated the same as a married couple if you choose not to get married. I've seen other people post (not necessarily here) that they would consider someone in a relationship single because they had not married their other half, even if they've been in a committed relationship for years. I'm only pointing out that some people are unable to get married (or even move in with their spouse) because of financial issues that are no fault of theirs. Unless I've been misreading everything, in which case I apologize.
Regarding the green: I don't think that people who choose, for whatever reason, not to get married should be treated poorly or as though their relationships are not genuine. But I think even in your own examples people have chosen NOT to be married precisely because they DON'T want to be treated as a married couple. The entire reason to choose to NOT be married is to avoid being treated as a married couple. Being married simply is NOT the same as NOT being married.
Regarding the red, I personally would not consider a person "single" in the sense of "this person does not have a significant other," but I also would not consider them to be "married" if they are not. For government purposes I think a person would be considered "single," because there is no option of "well, I've been with my boyfriend for 10 years and we are committed to each other but we are choosing not to marry." Valid choices, but in fact a choice to NOT marry.
Unless I am somehow personally invested in the relationship, I don't really care what someone chooses. I just am accurate when describing it.
Regarding the purple, I personally don't feel I need to justify my choices to anyone other than people those choices affect (if then). So long as I am comfortable with my choices, I wouldn't feel the need to justify them to people whose opinion I don't value. So I guess if you feel the need to explain your choices (general you) to people that is totally fine, but I don't think there is a generally expected need for you (general) to do so. Just live and let live.
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I think for a lot of people the issue is expecting to be treated the same as married people when people have made the decision NOT to marry for whatever reason. I don't think anyone needs to validate or defend their choices to anyone else. I think they just need to own it.
It's kinda like people who say, "A degree is just a piece of paper. I know way more than this guy with a PhD and I never went to college." It could very well be true that the high school graduate is smarter than the PhD, or knows more about a particular subject. But the high school graduate is NOT a PhD. Pointing that fact out is not saying the high school graduate isn't smart. It is saying she is not a PhD.
For the most part, I don't see the need to justify my decision not to get married, especially to people that I don't really know. I've never had anyone not invite my other half to something because we aren't married. The people we know have always treated us as a social unit. I do feel badly for those in the disabled community who would love to get married to their other half, but can't because they need their benefits. If I had known that the government would take away my other half's disability benefits because we moved in together, I don't know if we would have moved in together. I think it's something that needs to change, but that's a government issue and not an etiquette issue!
But some days it does feel like people do need to defend their decision not to get married. I'm seeing a lot of that attitude here: don't expect to be treated the same as a married couple if you choose not to get married. I've seen other people post (not necessarily here) that they would consider someone in a relationship single because they had not married their other half, even if they've been in a committed relationship for years. I'm only pointing out that some people are unable to get married (or even move in with their spouse) because of financial issues that are no fault of theirs. Unless I've been misreading everything, in which case I apologize.
Regarding the green: I don't think that people who choose, for whatever reason, not to get married should be treated poorly or as though their relationships are not genuine. But I think even in your own examples people have chosen NOT to be married precisely because they DON'T want to be treated as a married couple. The entire reason to choose to NOT be married is to avoid being treated as a married couple. Being married simply is NOT the same as NOT being married.
Regarding the red, I personally would not consider a person "single" in the sense of "this person does not have a significant other," but I also would not consider them to be "married" if they are not. For government purposes I think a person would be considered "single," because there is no option of "well, I've been with my boyfriend for 10 years and we are committed to each other but we are choosing not to marry." Valid choices, but in fact a choice to NOT marry.
Unless I am somehow personally invested in the relationship, I don't really care what someone chooses. I just am accurate when describing it.
Regarding the purple, I personally don't feel I need to justify my choices to anyone other than people those choices affect (if then). So long as I am comfortable with my choices, I wouldn't feel the need to justify them to people whose opinion I don't value. So I guess if you feel the need to explain your choices (general you) to people that is totally fine, but I don't think there is a generally expected need for you (general) to do so. Just live and let live.
For the most part, I don't see the need to justify my decision not to get married, especially to people that I don't really know. I've never had anyone not invite my other half to something because we aren't married. The people we know have always treated us as a social unit. I do feel badly for those in the disabled community who would love to get married to their other half, but can't because they need their benefits. If I had known that the government would take away my other half's disability benefits because we moved in together, I don't know if we would have done that. I think it's something that needs to change, but that's a government issue and not an etiquette issue!
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Meg1079 thank you for bringing this up. I really don't like the judgy side of old school etiquette.
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Meg1079 thank you for bringing this up. I really don't like the judgy side of old school etiquette.
I think we may be talking past each other in this conversation.
Some people are making the point that the etiquette definition of "social unit" is precisely for the purpose of AVOIDING making judgments about others' relationships.
The perceived "judgment" only happens if people forget that the categories recognized by etiquette as "social units" is only a baseline of people who MUST be invited together to weddings and dinner parties, regardless of any circumstances or judgments, not the only people who will fall into that category based on individual circumstances. It's a social category, not a legal one, and really it only ever comes into play for hosts inviting people to that limited category of events.
It does NOT mean that no other couples can or should be treated as social units. I find it hard to imagine that people would not treat a couple in the situation Meg1079 describes as a social unit -- as Meg reports that all of their friends do. And we can all think of lots of other examples. My mother and her boyfriend now live together, but even before they did, they had been socializing as a solid couple, including hosting parties together. Everyone always invited them together to dinners/weddings/etc. I think most people would agree that for such cases, it is not only considerate to invite the "other," it would be rude not to do so. As opposed to, say, a wedding host wondering if etiquette requires them to invite someone that a guest has been dating for a little while, even exclusively, even madly in love. It just doesn't (although they may choose to invite them anyway).
In the other direction, we have seen married people try to overextend the principle, claiming that they aren't being treated as a social unit if they are seated separately, if only one is in a wedding party, if a spouse isn't welcome at the other spouse's book group, if one spouse isn't included in the other's office party or a baby shower, etc. That's just ridiculous. They are entitled to their feelings, of course, but there is certainly no etiquette requirement.
It just isn't that major a thing. It just means that etiquette requires inviting ALL married, engaged, or cohabiting couples together to a limited list of events. It does not meant that other couples should not be treated the same way, too -- just that for all others, because there isn't a bright line category, you go on a case-by-case basis.
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Meg1079 thank you for bringing this up. I really don't like the judgy side of old school etiquette.
I think we may be talking past each other in this conversation.
Some people are making the point that the etiquette definition of "social unit" is precisely for the purpose of AVOIDING making judgments about others' relationships.
The perceived "judgment" only happens if people forget that the categories recognized by etiquette as "social units" is only a baseline of people who MUST be invited together to weddings and dinner parties, regardless of any circumstances or judgments, not the only people who will fall into that category based on individual circumstances. It's a social category, not a legal one, and really it only ever comes into play for hosts inviting people to that limited category of events.
It does NOT mean that no other couples can or should be treated as social units. I find it hard to imagine that people would not treat a couple in the situation Meg1079 describes as a social unit -- as Meg reports that all of their friends do. And we can all think of lots of other examples. My mother and her boyfriend now live together, but even before they did, they had been socializing as a solid couple, including hosting parties together. Everyone always invited them together to dinners/weddings/etc. I think most people would agree that for such cases, it is not only considerate to invite the "other," it would be rude not to do so. As opposed to, say, a wedding host wondering if etiquette requires them to invite someone that a guest has been dating for a little while, even exclusively, even madly in love. It just doesn't (although they may choose to invite them anyway).
In the other direction, we have seen married people try to overextend the principle, claiming that they aren't being treated as a social unit if they are seated separately, if only one is in a wedding party, if a spouse isn't welcome at the other spouse's book group, if one spouse isn't included in the other's office party or a baby shower, etc. That's just ridiculous. They are entitled to their feelings, of course, but there is certainly no etiquette requirement.
It just isn't that major a thing. It just means that etiquette requires inviting ALL married, engaged, or cohabiting couples together to a limited list of events. It does not meant that other couples should not be treated the same way, too -- just that for all others, because there isn't a bright line category, you go on a case-by-case basis.
People have said that they don't consider a relationship serious unless the couple is living together or married. I just want people to know that sometimes there's a good reason someone may not be married or living with their loved one. Telling them that you (general you, no one in specific) don't consider their relationship to be serious would be like a slap in the face. The disabled community is often treated as an afterthought.
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People have said that they don't consider a relationship serious unless the couple is living together or married. I just want people to know that sometimes there's a good reason someone may not be married or living with their loved one. Telling them that you (general you, no one in specific) don't consider their relationship to be serious would be like a slap in the face. The disabled community is often treated as an afterthought.
Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see people saying the bolded in this thread? I saw people say that people who choose not to be married for whatever reason are not, in fact, married. The relationship is not the same for married people versus unmarried people. What you have described is a well reasoned choice to not be married specifically because people do not want to be treated as married.
It's not a statement of the "seriousness" of the relationship. It's a factual statement of whether two people are married.
I think privately people make value judgments about other peoples' relationships all the time. "Poor Jane, everyone knows her husband John has been cheating on her," or "Sally is so lucky! Her boyfriend Sam treats her like gold!" But a statement of whether or not someone is in fact married is NOT a value judgment. Regardless of the health of their relationship, Jane and John ARE married and are treated as such in all sorts of ways because of that commitment they made. Regardless of the health of their relationship, Sally and Sam ARE NOT married and are not treated as such in various ways because they HAVE NOT made the commitment of MARRIAGE. It is not saying Sally and Sam are not in a serious relationship. It is saying their relationship is not one of marriage.
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No, it won't. And why should it, if they aren't willing to confirm to the world that they are and wish to be a legal couple? Indeed, how could it know for sure if they were and they did? Would anyone be happy, if say one of a couple died in a work accident, for the survivor's entitlement to compensation, a widow(er)'s pension et cetera to be assessed by an official with a clipboard coming round and checking how long they had lived together, how many long-term purchases they had made jointly, and asking the neighbours if they seemed fond of each other?
I have sometimes said, when people complain that their longtime sweetheart, with whom they don't live, isn't being included when spouses would be or are: They're not your spouse. If you want them to be treated like a spouse, you have three avenues to achieve that: Get engaged, move in together, or get married.
People will say, "You shouldn't be judging our relationship!" but in fact, that's what they're asking you to do. With an engagement, cohabitation, or marriage, THEY are the one declaring how serious that relationship is.
If you're dating only, no matter how long it is, you are asking other people to make some OTHER judgment about how serious your relationship is. Because you have not used the three signals that our culture recognizes, and now you are asking them to use their decision and not your declaration (because your declaration says the opposite, actually--you've dating a long time and haven't gotten married; what do your actions say about how serious you are?)
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Exactly. I always say too that a couple's decision to NOT get married is one that comes with consequences socially, whether it is "fair" or not. For a great many people and institutions, unless and until people take the affirmative step to become legally joined in marriage, they are simply not as "committed" as those who have not taken that step.
You've been dating for 5 years? That means for 4 years at least, every morning the two of you get up and decide to not get engaged or get married, and at least 4 times (when your lease ran out), you decided to not live together. What do your actions say?
Me too. A few years ago a British soldier was killed on active service and his unmarried partner applied for a widow's pension and was refused it. She went to law, and ultimately the MoD caved in and gave it to her. I'm still uneasy about that. It's almost like marrying them posthumously with him not able to object (the way Mormons 'baptise' their long-dead ancestors - if I were a long-dead ancestor I would be fit to be tied about that). Every soldier going to a war zone must think about what will happen to his loved ones if he doesn't come back. The welfare officers must have spelt out in good time to the troops being shipped out to Afghanistan that 'widows' pensions are for widows - if you ever plan to marry your partner, think about getting a licence and doing it now'. But he didn't.
I would have much the same reaction.
Conservative Christians like to say that marriage is under attack from gay people who want to be able to marry. I think the institution of marriage IS under attack, but it's not from the people who say "marriage is special and we want to be able to be a part of it."
It's from the people who insist on having "domestic partnerships," or who want the financial or social perks of marriage without marrying.
There is some middle ground probably, and we're working it out as a culture. But if marriage means something, then it means something.
Re: your story of the widow:
In NYC, a cohabiting couple applied to purchase a co-operative apartment. With a co-op, you actually don't purchase an apartment; you never own it. You purchase shares in a corporation that are assigned to the apartment, and owning them gives you the right to occupy and modify (as well as the responsibility of upkeep).
Since you are essentially joining a business partnership, the other shareholders get the right to approve you as a business partner. So you have to have a certain financial strength (savings, earnings, etc.), credit score, personal reputation, etc.
In this couple's case, the woman had enough earnings and savings to qualify. They approved her as a buyer. The guy did not, and because they were not married, the co-op had to evaluate him on his own; he was rejected as a buyer. He WAS approved as a tenant, which meant he could live there.
The corporation said, "If you were married, we could count you as a single legal entity, and you'd both be approved. But since you're not married, and the man has no legal claim to the financial assets and income of the woman, we can't approve him.
"This is a business decision based on legalities; we aren't judging him as an unfit person, and we'd be happy to have him live here."
The couple claimed it was discrimination against them on the basis of marital status and sued.
I hope they lost.
And we are LONG way away from eliminating the wedding breakfast!
The feeling I'm getting from all these quotes is that if you want to be taken seriously as a couple, and you want to have all the legal benefits of being married to your partner, then you need to be married. Which is fine, and that makes sense. What I'm trying to say is that in the disabled community some people cannot marry their partner because the government will take away their disability benefits. It's not that they don't want to marry their partner, it's that they can't, not without being punished for it. They seriously can't even live together with their partner because the government will punish them for that, too. The system is messed up, and that needs to change. Perhaps our culture also needs to change a bit, too.
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The problem with "don't judge my relationship" is that at some point people planning events have to.
What if your old friend Doug wants to bring his mistress instead of his wife (oh, and please don't send the invitation to his home)? or if Cousin Marley is threatening to never speak to you again if you don't invite her boyfriend (length of relationship two weeks) to your very intimate wedding that was intended only for the dozen people you're extremely close to?
In general, I'd say most people are of good judgment, and if they want to invite people to their weddings they *know* who are "serious couples" and want to make them happy. But other than saying everyone must be issued a non-specific "plus one" invitation, how to do you avoid having to judge?
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Meg1079 thank you for bringing this up. I really don't like the judgy side of old school etiquette.
I think we may be talking past each other in this conversation.
Some people are making the point that the etiquette definition of "social unit" is precisely for the purpose of AVOIDING making judgments about others' relationships.
The perceived "judgment" only happens if people forget that the categories recognized by etiquette as "social units" is only a baseline of people who MUST be invited together to weddings and dinner parties, regardless of any circumstances or judgments, not the only people who will fall into that category based on individual circumstances. It's a social category, not a legal one, and really it only ever comes into play for hosts inviting people to that limited category of events.
It does NOT mean that no other couples can or should be treated as social units. I find it hard to imagine that people would not treat a couple in the situation Meg1079 describes as a social unit -- as Meg reports that all of their friends do. And we can all think of lots of other examples. My mother and her boyfriend now live together, but even before they did, they had been socializing as a solid couple, including hosting parties together. Everyone always invited them together to dinners/weddings/etc. I think most people would agree that for such cases, it is not only considerate to invite the "other," it would be rude not to do so. As opposed to, say, a wedding host wondering if etiquette requires them to invite someone that a guest has been dating for a little while, even exclusively, even madly in love. It just doesn't (although they may choose to invite them anyway).
In the other direction, we have seen married people try to overextend the principle, claiming that they aren't being treated as a social unit if they are seated separately, if only one is in a wedding party, if a spouse isn't welcome at the other spouse's book group, if one spouse isn't included in the other's office party or a baby shower, etc. That's just ridiculous. They are entitled to their feelings, of course, but there is certainly no etiquette requirement.
It just isn't that major a thing. It just means that etiquette requires inviting ALL married, engaged, or cohabiting couples together to a limited list of events. It does not meant that other couples should not be treated the same way, too -- just that for all others, because there isn't a bright line category, you go on a case-by-case basis.
People have said that they don't consider a relationship serious unless the couple is living together or married. I just want people to know that sometimes there's a good reason someone may not be married or living with their loved one. Telling them that you (general you, no one in specific) don't consider their relationship to be serious would be like a slap in the face. The disabled community is often treated as an afterthought.
Meg, as I wrote above, I completely agree with you about couples in situations such as the one you mention, disability, and many others besides. Irrespective of the etiquette rule, I think anyone who knows their situation would consider such a couple a social unit who must be invited together.
I'm replying again because I was troubled by the bolded. No one here has said that relationships other than marriage, engagement, or cohabitation aren't serious. Of course they can be, and often are, as serious, committed, and permanent, or even more so. I didn't see anyone saying that "they don't consider a relationship serious unless the couple is living together or married," as you wrote in an earlier post. The minimum etiquette rules for invitations are not judgment of the seriousness of any relationship -- in fact, they are there instead of judgments of seriousness. There is a very big difference.
Etiquette rules have to be based on some kind of bright line categories. That doesn't mean that adhering to only those categories isn't extremely rude (not to mention mean) in individual cases. The rules of etiquette do NOT always guarantee good manners. Indeed, we all know of many examples in which the best way to be polite is to break a rule. And treating couples such as those you mention as a social unit isn't even breaking a rule at all -- it just means going beyond the bare minimum categories that the rule requires.
There is also the factor that if couples in a situation where they cannot get legally married want to be recognized as a permanent social unit, they can have a commitment ceremony. That's what same sex couples used to have to do. In my experience, that did the job of everyone treating them as married -- socially, though not legally. And it seems to me that there is no reason that other couples can't do that, too, with the same social result. So the choice not to do so does say something, I guess.
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When I got married, we were really tight on space so we didn't invite any singles with 'plus ones'. But for some, we weren't sure if they were seeing anyone so we put a slip in their invitation to let us know if they were seeing someone and we'd invite them. It worked out well, except for two family members. One responded that she was bringing her daughter and the other, her best friend. I wanted to remind them that plus ones weren't included but my husband didn't want to make a case out of it (his family) and we ended up having enough 'No' responses that it wasn't an issue space wise.
The 22 no-shows (after saying they were coming) is a whole 'nother story...
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The problem with "don't judge my relationship" is that at some point people planning events have to.
What if your old friend Doug wants to bring his mistress instead of his wife (oh, and please don't send the invitation to his home)? or if Cousin Marley is threatening to never speak to you again if you don't invite her boyfriend (length of relationship two weeks) to your very intimate wedding that was intended only for the dozen people you're extremely close to?
In general, I'd say most people are of good judgment, and if they want to invite people to their weddings they *know* who are "serious couples" and want to make them happy. But other than saying everyone must be issued a non-specific "plus one" invitation, how to do you avoid having to judge?
I just never actually encountered the problem. I don't expect people I care about to come solo to any event I host and I also wouldn't invite someone if I didn't know them well enough to know their situation. For my wedding I just called the 2-3 people who don't have an obvious significant other. "Are you seeing anyone that you would like to bring?"
In the example above, Cousin Marley and I could not be all that close if she wants to be her stranger boyfriend to my intimate wedding, so she wouldn't have been included in the first place. Maybe that's just luck, though as I don't have many family demands.
My Mom has been in a relationship for 30+ years with a man, but they never married and do not live together; because they don't want to be married or live together. But never in about 29 of those years did anyone fail to include both of them on any formal invitation. They are a social unit and anyone that has met them once knows that.
Another example - my friend Lynn is single but everyone that invites her to something formal knows to include her Mom.
It's just not that complicated in my opinion.
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The trouble is some events ARE too large to know that Lynn prefers to attend with her mother. Both the host and Lynn should be aware that by not inviting her mother, the host hasn't insulted Lynn, or violated some standard etiquette. Whereas if the host invites Frank but don't extend an invitation to his spouse, they have.
Like all etiquette, this involves, but currently I'd say there are some carved-in-stone, "must invite" relationships. Married couples (unless they're officially separated). People who live together as couples. People who have socialized as a couple with the hosts are pretty close to that.
Other than those, people should be able to invite folks whose inner hearts they don't know as individuals, without those people throwing a fit. If Lynn prefers to attend events with her mother, she at least shouldn't feel upset when someone who doesn't know her that well doesn't include Mom, just as people who do know her well should ensure she's made comfortable by the invitation.
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I posted about this on the old boards, but I'll never forget the time my partner and I were invited to a friend's wedding. After dinner, the MC asked for all the "single people" to come up to the front of the room. My partner and I did not consider ourselves single, so we stayed put. Then the MC started calling out the "single people" by name, and he specifically named my partner and I (among others).
So we went up to the front, where the MC announced that all the "single people" would be playing a game, which involved randomly pairing up (male-female) and popping balloons... without using our hands! The first team to burst their balloon (using only their bodies) would win.
My partner immediately turned on his heel and sat down. I stayed, and was randomly paired with the groom's teenage cousin (I was 30 years old). So all the "single people" started playing this game, while all the married folks sat there watching, and grinning at us. Mercifully another team managed to pop their balloon quite quickly, and it was over. The MC asked for a "round of applause for all the single people!".
To add insult to injury, when I returned to my table, I'd discovered that the waitstaff had come around offering shots of premium spirits for everyone who was sitting down... which meant in practice, all the "single people" missed out on the shots. (I have no idea whether this was intentional timing or not).
Fun fact: At that time, my partner had I had been together for 6 years, living together for 5 years, and held a mortgage together for 4 years.
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The trouble is some events ARE too large to know that Lynn prefers to attend with her mother. Both the host and Lynn should be aware that by not inviting her mother, the host hasn't insulted Lynn, or violated some standard etiquette. Whereas if the host invites Frank but don't extend an invitation to his spouse, they have.
Like all etiquette, this involves, but currently I'd say there are some carved-in-stone, "must invite" relationships. Married couples (unless they're officially separated). People who live together as couples. People who have socialized as a couple with the hosts are pretty close to that.
Other than those, people should be able to invite folks whose inner hearts they don't know as individuals, without those people throwing a fit. If Lynn prefers to attend events with her mother, she at least shouldn't feel upset when someone who doesn't know her that well doesn't include Mom, just as people who do know her well should ensure she's made comfortable by the invitation.
I’d argue that if you are having events so large that you don’t know your own guests or that you cannot afford to care about their comfort and happiness, you shouldn't be hosting at all.
And who is talking about to anyone throwing a fit?
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. . . my partner and I were invited to a friend's wedding. After dinner, the MC asked for all the "single people" to come up to the front of the room. My partner and I did not consider ourselves single, so we stayed put. Then the MC started calling out the "single people" by name, and he specifically named my partner and I (among others).
So we went up to the front, where the MC announced that all the "single people" would be playing a game, which involved randomly pairing up (male-female) and popping balloons... without using our hands! The first team to burst their balloon (using only their bodies) would win.
My partner immediately turned on his heel and sat down. I stayed, and was randomly paired with the groom's teenage cousin (I was 30 years old). So all the "single people" started playing this game, while all the married folks sat there watching, and grinning at us. Mercifully another team managed to pop their balloon quite quickly, and it was over. The MC asked for a "round of applause for all the single people!".
If this was a professional MC that the bridal couple had hired, or even if it was a friend or relation asked to fill this role, it's possible that when he asked for a list of the single guests they had no idea he was going to subject them to this kind of embarrassing 'game'. Even so, like you I'm surprised they would have classed you and you partner as single. Maybe it was someone else, say the bride's mother, who was asked? I can see a person of a previous generation taking a much narrower view of who is or is not entitled to be considered a 'couple'; also, she might not necessarily know the living arrangements of her daughter's friends, and just go by the fact that you weren't Mr and Mrs.
To add insult to injury, when I returned to my table, I'd discovered that the waitstaff had come around offering shots of premium spirits for everyone who was sitting down... which meant in practice, all the "single people" missed out on the shots. (I have no idea whether this was intentional timing or not).
I would certainly assume, unless I had positive evidence to the contrary, that the wait staff weren't in any way coordinating their serving with the MC's high jinks: that they were under instructions to serve a round of spirits after dinner had been finished and cleared, and so that's what they did.
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I think for a lot of people the issue is expecting to be treated the same as married people when people have made the decision NOT to marry for whatever reason. I don't think anyone needs to validate or defend their choices to anyone else. I think they just need to own it.
It's kinda like people who say, "A degree is just a piece of paper. I know way more than this guy with a PhD and I never went to college." It could very well be true that the high school graduate is smarter than the PhD, or knows more about a particular subject. But the high school graduate is NOT a PhD. Pointing that fact out is not saying the high school graduate isn't smart. It is saying she is not a PhD.
For the most part, I don't see the need to justify my decision not to get married, especially to people that I don't really know. I've never had anyone not invite my other half to something because we aren't married. The people we know have always treated us as a social unit. I do feel badly for those in the disabled community who would love to get married to their other half, but can't because they need their benefits. If I had known that the government would take away my other half's disability benefits because we moved in together, I don't know if we would have moved in together. I think it's something that needs to change, but that's a government issue and not an etiquette issue!
But some days it does feel like people do need to defend their decision not to get married. I'm seeing a lot of that attitude here: don't expect to be treated the same as a married couple if you choose not to get married. I've seen other people post (not necessarily here) that they would consider someone in a relationship single because they had not married their other half, even if they've been in a committed relationship for years. I'm only pointing out that some people are unable to get married (or even move in with their spouse) because of financial issues that are no fault of theirs. Unless I've been misreading everything, in which case I apologize.
Regarding the green: I don't think that people who choose, for whatever reason, not to get married should be treated poorly or as though their relationships are not genuine. But I think even in your own examples people have chosen NOT to be married precisely because they DON'T want to be treated as a married couple. The entire reason to choose to NOT be married is to avoid being treated as a married couple. Being married simply is NOT the same as NOT being married.
Regarding the red, I personally would not consider a person "single" in the sense of "this person does not have a significant other," but I also would not consider them to be "married" if they are not. For government purposes I think a person would be considered "single," because there is no option of "well, I've been with my boyfriend for 10 years and we are committed to each other but we are choosing not to marry." Valid choices, but in fact a choice to NOT marry.
Unless I am somehow personally invested in the relationship, I don't really care what someone chooses. I just am accurate when describing it.
Regarding the purple, I personally don't feel I need to justify my choices to anyone other than people those choices affect (if then). So long as I am comfortable with my choices, I wouldn't feel the need to justify them to people whose opinion I don't value. So I guess if you feel the need to explain your choices (general you) to people that is totally fine, but I don't think there is a generally expected need for you (general) to do so. Just live and let live.
For the most part, I don't see the need to justify my decision not to get married, especially to people that I don't really know. I've never had anyone not invite my other half to something because we aren't married. The people we know have always treated us as a social unit. I do feel badly for those in the disabled community who would love to get married to their other half, but can't because they need their benefits. If I had known that the government would take away my other half's disability benefits because we moved in together, I don't know if we would have done that. I think it's something that needs to change, but that's a government issue and not an etiquette issue!
I'm just catching up with this thread and in reading, I saw the focus more on the legality issues and perceptions of married versus choosing to not marry. I have a sister who is in her mid 50's but after a stroke is wheelchair bound and has lost the use of her right side. She has been on disability for about a year and a half now. If she and her DH divorced, her disability payments would be much higher. However, neither she or her DH made that decision, though financially it would be better for both of them. Instead they are making due with the one income. So while I do think it unfair that disability payments are tied to partner's incomes, some will choose to lose out financially for the sake of having the legal institution of marriage and the other benefits that come with that.
However, socially, I think any long term couple who present themselves socially as a committed couple should be treated that way no matter if they are living together, living separately or married. I will also state that I know people who are "legally" married who do not present themselves as a social unit and they do not want or expect to be treated as a social unit. (In both cases, they co-own businesses and decided it was just too complicated to divorce. One even has a long term partner he has lived with for 5 years. We treat him and her as the social unit.)
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. . . my partner and I were invited to a friend's wedding. After dinner, the MC asked for all the "single people" to come up to the front of the room. My partner and I did not consider ourselves single, so we stayed put. Then the MC started calling out the "single people" by name, and he specifically named my partner and I (among others).
So we went up to the front, where the MC announced that all the "single people" would be playing a game, which involved randomly pairing up (male-female) and popping balloons... without using our hands! The first team to burst their balloon (using only their bodies) would win.
My partner immediately turned on his heel and sat down. I stayed, and was randomly paired with the groom's teenage cousin (I was 30 years old). So all the "single people" started playing this game, while all the married folks sat there watching, and grinning at us. Mercifully another team managed to pop their balloon quite quickly, and it was over. The MC asked for a "round of applause for all the single people!".
If this was a professional MC that the bridal couple had hired, or even if it was a friend or relation asked to fill this role, it's possible that when he asked for a list of the single guests they had no idea he was going to subject them to this kind of embarrassing 'game'. Even so, like you I'm surprised they would have classed you and you partner as single. Maybe it was someone else, say the bride's mother, who was asked? I can see a person of a previous generation taking a much narrower view of who is or is not entitled to be considered a 'couple'; also, she might not necessarily know the living arrangements of her daughter's friends, and just go by the fact that you weren't Mr and Mrs.
To add insult to injury, when I returned to my table, I'd discovered that the waitstaff had come around offering shots of premium spirits for everyone who was sitting down... which meant in practice, all the "single people" missed out on the shots. (I have no idea whether this was intentional timing or not).
I would certainly assume, unless I had positive evidence to the contrary, that the wait staff weren't in any way coordinating their serving with the MC's high jinks: that they were under instructions to serve a round of spirits after dinner had been finished and cleared, and so that's what they did.
I should point out that married or not, no one is obligated to take part in activities like this. The partner who sat down was well within his rights and was in no way rude. Hectoring people to take part in these games is the rudeness.
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To add insult to injury, when I returned to my table, I'd discovered that the waitstaff had come around offering shots of premium spirits for everyone who was sitting down... which meant in practice, all the "single people" missed out on the shots. (I have no idea whether this was intentional timing or not).
I would certainly assume, unless I had positive evidence to the contrary, that the wait staff weren't in any way coordinating their serving with the MC's high jinks: that they were under instructions to serve a round of spirits after dinner had been finished and cleared, and so that's what they did.
Actually it sounds like that's exactly what did happen. I suspect the staff was indeed requested to serve the couples remaining at the table while the single people were balloon game engaged.
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I suspect the staff was indeed requested to serve the couples remaining at the table while the single people were balloon game engaged.
You're assuming then that this whole episode was devised with hostile intent toward all the couple's single friends and relations? Because while plenty of people who enjoy this kind of game are thoughtless and insensitive enough to assume that everybody else does and will be happy to play it to order, pretty much nobody who serves "premium spirits" assumes that people will be happy to be deprived of it while everyone else is getting.
I have a hard time envisaging a bridal couple saying to each other, 'After dinner, let's make all the single guests play a silly embarrassing game while everyone else sits laughing at them, and we'll have the MC call them up by name so none of them can get out of it. And we'll have the 10-year-old scotch served while they're doing it, so when they get back to their table they'll find they've missed out. That will be fun, tee-hee!''
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In a word, yes.
There may have been no A list and B list for the wedding itself, but yes I have indeed seen individuals and groups of guests treated quite differently at/during receptions.
Came back to edit a bit: I don't mean to imply that the hosts were being intentionally cruel, just that they were so busy trying to keep everyone entertained while the one group (singles) were on the floor and presumably getting all the attention, that they just 'forgot' to consider that they were treating the two groups quite differently. I don't think the intention was to be mean.
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I suspect the staff was indeed requested to serve the couples remaining at the table while the single people were balloon game engaged.
You're assuming then that this whole episode was devised with hostile intent toward all the couple's single friends and relations? Because while plenty of people who enjoy this kind of game are thoughtless and insensitive enough to assume that everybody else does and will be happy to play it to order, pretty much nobody who serves "premium spirits" assumes that people will be happy to be deprived of it while everyone else is getting.
I have a hard time envisaging a bridal couple saying to each other, 'After dinner, let's make all the single guests play a silly embarrassing game while everyone else sits laughing at them, and we'll have the MC call them up by name so none of them can get out of it. And we'll have the 10-year-old scotch served while they're doing it, so when they get back to their table they'll find they've missed out. That will be fun, tee-hee!''
I can see them saying "That will be cheaper, tee-hee." Not necessarily out of malice, but because someone has suggested it as a way of cutting costs.
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I think it's more likely that they'd say, "the singles will be doing the games on the floor, so what can we do to entertain the people still at the tables? I know! shots of a fancy drink"
And then they've treated the groups differently.