Author Topic: Doing away with the wedding breakfast  (Read 3144 times)

Meg1079

Re: Doing away with the wedding breakfast
« Reply #45 on: September 11, 2019, 10:05:44 am »

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. 

Jem

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Re: Doing away with the wedding breakfast
« Reply #46 on: September 11, 2019, 10:17:13 am »

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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Meg1079

Re: Doing away with the wedding breakfast
« Reply #47 on: September 11, 2019, 10:43:52 am »

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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Hanna

Re: Doing away with the wedding breakfast
« Reply #48 on: September 11, 2019, 12:44:16 pm »
Meg1079 thank you for bringing this up.   I really don't like the judgy side of old school etiquette.
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gellchom

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Re: Doing away with the wedding breakfast
« Reply #49 on: September 11, 2019, 02:19:26 pm »
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

Re: Doing away with the wedding breakfast
« Reply #50 on: September 11, 2019, 02:58:58 pm »
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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Jem

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Re: Doing away with the wedding breakfast
« Reply #51 on: September 11, 2019, 03:19:53 pm »
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.

Meg1079

Re: Doing away with the wedding breakfast
« Reply #52 on: September 11, 2019, 04:17:51 pm »
....
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?)


...

Quote
Quote
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?

Quote
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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Twik

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Re: Doing away with the wedding breakfast
« Reply #53 on: September 13, 2019, 09:13:24 am »
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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gellchom

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Re: Doing away with the wedding breakfast
« Reply #54 on: September 13, 2019, 01:21:40 pm »
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. 


STiG

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Re: Doing away with the wedding breakfast
« Reply #55 on: September 13, 2019, 01:46:45 pm »
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...

Hanna

Re: Doing away with the wedding breakfast
« Reply #56 on: September 13, 2019, 02:25:41 pm »
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.

Twik

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Re: Doing away with the wedding breakfast
« Reply #57 on: September 13, 2019, 02:56:30 pm »
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.

LifeOnPluto

Re: Doing away with the wedding breakfast
« Reply #58 on: September 14, 2019, 01:42:07 am »
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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Hanna

Re: Doing away with the wedding breakfast
« Reply #59 on: September 14, 2019, 08:12:26 am »
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?