Dear Miss Manners – My husband received an e-mail invitation to a wedding reception for an acquaintance of his at work. The couple was already married.
We did not attend the reception, but we did buy them a gift. That was several weeks ago, and we have not received any thanks.
Please let me have your thoughts on proper protocol regarding e-mail invitations. Are such invitations more casual than the written kind, or are they just the new trend in high-tech companies? Were we not expected to send a gift?
Gentle Reader – Sure, e-mail is less formal than engraving or the cheaper and even nicer alternative, handwriting, both of which are still in proper service. You knew that.
Miss Manners can nevertheless imagine an event for which e-mail might be appropriate: The already-married couple decides to throw an informal party to thank all their well-wishers and wants to reach them quickly without making them think there is any fuss involved.
What you encountered must have been a slapdash attempt to capture the advantages of formality without the effort. Just the sort of thing one might expect from people who are happy to receive presents (which you neednt have sent, unless you felt a gracious urge to give people something to symbolize your warm feeling for them) but are unwilling to make the effort to acknowledge them.
Dear Miss Manners – Is there any protocol that suggests that it is the responsibility of the “children” to sponsor the 50th wedding anniversary party for their parents?
Gentle Reader – Miss Manners has a question about your family. Why are your children in quotation marks? She hopes it is because no matter how grown-up they get, you think of them as small and cuddly. And not that it is because even though they are making more money than you are, they haven’t volunteered to give an anniversary party for you.
Nobody is required to sponsor anyone else’s celebration, and if you had asked Miss Manners about it when those “children” announced that you were responsible for sponsoring expensive weddings for them, she would have told them the same thing. Nevertheless, it is a very nice thing to volunteer to do if one is willing and able.
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