I like having rules for things. There, I said it. Life works better when there are rules and people follow them with dignity and mutual respect, or at least carefully plan their transgressions from them and go about those transgressions discretely or fabulously (because a departure from convention, when brilliantly pulled off, is one of the most satisfying things there can be).
And liking rules for things is one of the reason I started -- many, many years ago -- collecting antique etiquette manuals. The other reason is that I like old things.
But every spring and summer, as a new crop of wedding invitations slithers through my mail slot, I'm faced with the fact that there are now Things we just don't have Rules for yet. Yes, my dusty old books can tell me how to plan a "Hasty Wedding" appropriate for 1897, but I have 3 distinctly contemporary puzzles ...puzzling me at the moment.
So I thought I'd ask you lot for a ruling on them. Or just provide you with the opportunity to get your judgmental on, because let's face it -- that can be fun sometimes.
Problem Number One: The Wedding E-Vite. The first time I got an e-vite to a wedding was in 2007. I cringed a bit, yes, but . . . it was the second marriage for both the bride and the groom. It was a very casual event. I could see the rationale. I can see wanting to keep costs down and this being a way to cut a potentially huge item from your budget. I can see wanting to do a "green wedding" and not creating a piece of embossed, Crane watermarked waste for every person on your guest list.
Plus, the bride was a friend of mine. I give people I like a degree of latitude I don't extend to the rest of the world.
So when this girl from high school -- a girl I cannot stand but have invested 20 years of my life in being nice-ish to because I knew she had a difficult home life (and was well over the line in terms of being both a crazy religious person and just plain crazy) sent me an e-vite to her wedding a few months back, I let fly with the judgment. I sang an entire Italian aria of judgment to friends who provided a willing back up chorus, complete with "Da-doo-ron-rons" of judgment.
I just can't get past the thought that it is just SO tacky to invite people to your wedding the same way you'd invite them to your end of summer barbecue -- and in the same quantities as well. You get a mailed invitation to someone's wedding, you know that you are special enough to them to have made that cut (or a blood relative they have to invite anyway, but whatever).
You get a glittery purple e-vite where you can see that they've invited everyone from their church, their work, and your high school graduating class? You're nothing more to them than another opportunity for a blender.
Now that I've admitted my utter hypocrisy on this matter, what do you think?
Problem Number Two: Your Presence in Thoughts and Prayers. . . Or Via Skype. Forty years ago, my parents' wedding invitation said something like "if you are unable to attend, we thank you for your presence in thoughts and prayers."
Yesterday, the I (Heart) Jesus Bride from the wedding discussed above posted a link on facebook -- open to all 850 of her facebook friends -- to a webcam link to her church, so they can enjoy the ceremony even if they're not able to make it.
Now. . .again. I can definitely see how this could be ok. The bride worked in another country for a few years; they're going to have a number of friends that can't make it (and there are people like myself, who still can't wrap their vain little heads around the fact that this woman -- really? her? -- is getting married, and will tune in to see if the groom turns out to be a cardboard stand-ee of Han Solo or Jesus or something).
It would be a nice thing to do if it were something you were doing for a few people who were very special to you. But to publicly provide the info to eight hundred and fifty idiots on facebook?
Am I a nut for thinking there's something skeevy about this? What's your ruling, interwebs?
Problem Number Three: Appropriate Dress for Guests. I have a lovely white strapless dress with a black belt/sash and black trim at the top and around the hem. I have never worn this to a wedding because I would never wear a white dress to another woman's wedding.
But. . .
What if it's not another woman's wedding? What if it's the wedding of two men? Can a female guest wear white to a wedding when there's no bride to take attention away from?
I eagerly await your thoughts.
7 comments:
How very interesting...my two pence:
1. Wedding invitations don't have to be expensive. Going the DIY route can definitely be expensive, but you could go the *sorta* DIY route and get the ones at Michael's or Target or whatever. However, for a huge number of people, yeah, it'll be expensive. But this is still not the solution. Ruling? Tacky.
We all know the people who would do the really nice e-vite (there is a site that does online wedding invites, quite beautifully) to be green b/c you know that's just who they are. Those are also the people who dug up the potatoes for the potato salad that they prepared at your picnic table at their wedding. Totally different than YAYMEPARTY!
2. This would be wonderful for people who she is really close to and can't be there. But for all of Facebook? Not so much. Ruling? Gloaty and tacky.
3. This is the interesting one. I would ask one or both of the grooms since there is no defined etiquette. I would love to think this is okay but what if one of them is really jazzed about his white suit? Or white whatever? Keep us posted on this one...
I pretty much concur with the thoughts above.
1. I think that's incredibly tacky. I can see an e-vite save the date, but the actual invitation? In this day and age, where you can do things incredibly inexpensively on any type of budget I think that's not so right.
2. I find the whole webstream your wedding thing a little....odd. I understand wanting to make your wedding available to those who can't be there, but then share the youtube video later, don't stream it via facebook.
3. Totally depends on the grooms. You never know. Could you wear a colored wrap?
1. "a piece of embossed, Crane watermarked waste" its like your words stabbed me in the heart...
2. for me..weddings are one of those things ya have to be there to enjoy..
3. i dont think you are in danger of upstaging anyones dress ... so id say yes!
xoxo
1. Tacky. My issue with it is twofold: I feel like it would make the recipient feel less like a person important enough to the couple to rate an invitation, as you pointed out. The wedding invitation list is pored over for weeks by everyone involved in the planning of the wedding. An evite feels almost like some bridesmaid spent 20 minutes throwing together a list of the bride's gmail contacts. And maybe it's just me, but I would wonder whether everyone got the evite or if the A-listers got real invitations.
My second issue is I also feel like it diminishes the significance of the wedding. A wedding is one of the few events in life that is momentous enough for a formal ceremony, complete with costumes, throngs of witnesses, and a celebratory feast. An evite just can't convey that.
2. Tacky and ridiculous. I find it hard to believe anyone's ego is so large that they would think all those people want to sit in front of their computers watching someone they don't know get married to someone else they don't know. She probably doesn't think they ALL want to watch it, but still... You ain't getting 850 presents, girl.
3. If you don't ask the couple and just want a yea or nay, I give it a yea. I think it would be fine and not at all inappropriate.
1. I think that you give your friends a by because you know and love them. If the random girl had made a note on the invite that she was doing this to "go green", then maybe you'd feel better about getting it that way. HOWEVER, I am also against e-vites for weddings, so I get where you're coming from.
2. I think that this is as tacky as people changing Facebook status to "married" while AT THE ALTER! (still bitter about watching that at one wedding, can you tell?) If people aren't there, let them see the pictures afterwards. Exception to this rule: grandparents, parents, siblings in hospital.
3. I wouldn't wear a white dress to a wedding, no matter who is getting married. That's just me, because it IS possible that one of the grooms is wearing white. Also, it bugged me to see some woman wearing a white suit to Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding. Really? It's a formal occasion, you don't have anything else you could wear that you look good in?
So, I'd say pass on the white dress, even though it has black trim.
I think weddings are an obscene amount of hullaballoo and are kind of over wrought, so I'm sort of ambivalent on e-vites. By that same token, though, I can't imagine anyone wanting to e-commute to a wedding ceremony -- people show up for the open bar and cake, not for the priest's insight on love.
As for the final question -- It had never occured to me (a representative of the man-loving man demographic) that women can't wear white to weddings because it'll detract from the bride. Now that you've said it, it makes perfect sense -- but previously I had honestly never thought it through. If your gay friends are anything like me and my gay friends, they'll celebrate the adorableness of the dress/sash combo without even thinking about the whiteness of the dress.
cam: good call on asking.
cgg: totally a colored wrap, and probably colored shoes too.
sb: if it's any consolation, I totally plan on generating an entire landfill of Crane watermarked waste if I ever get married; I can just see why people choose not to.
anon: totally agree on both counts with the e-vite call -- I know it's YOUR day but show me you actually value me enough to want ME there for it.
Jeni: I cannot BELIEVE that about the facebook. Gross.
Dakota: If only there was an e-bar attached to this wedding, I'd go. Alas, I think even if I went in person it would be a punch and cake only affair.
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