With all the lists, notebooks and Web sites that people use to plan weddings, they still keep getting the proper order of events backward. And Miss Manners isn’t even counting the widespread notion that consummation should occur before committing to courtship. She is referring to other practices that have become commonplace:
– Deciding where to be married and planning a string of related events before determining if the couple’s families can or will spend the time and money they would have to in order to have the expected pleasure–or perform the duty–of attending a relative’s wedding.
– Finding the site for the reception and then dealing with its limitations when composing the guest list, rather than first figuring out who should be invited and finding a place that will accommodate them all.
– Choosing the bridesmaids’ dresses before hearing the bridesmaids’ views about what will suit each of them and what each can afford, and telling them what parties to throw without being asked.
– Selecting the wedding presents without waiting to see what the guests might care to give them, and then letting the guests know what to buy without being asked.
– Throughout all the planning, making decisions without having accumulated the money to pay for their results.
These upside-down approaches lead to much of the ugliness now associated with weddings.
To avoid this sort of trouble, the couple need only turn their planning notebooks upside down, so that they fit their plans to the people they should invite and the money they can spend, instead of the other way around.
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Send your etiquette questions to Miss Manners, c/o the Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611.
