Dear Etiquetteer:
I have another etiquette question. Who else to write besides Miss Manners?
My husband and I are jetting to [Insert Faraway City Here] to attend our niece’s wedding. We will be there for three days not including travel days.
My former sister-in-law’s family is flying over from [Insert Country Here]. We spent a week with them several years ago. We all get along except when it comes to dining out. Some are vegetarians, some only eat fish. It turns into a [Insert Profanity Here]!
Instead of dealing with that again, we made dinner reservations for two of the nights we’re there. My ex sister-in-law (who we love), said my niece and her family could be available for dinner. I replied that we have dinner reservations but we’re open for breakfast or lunch. Did I do something wrong with not inviting them for dinner? It’s like rounding up cats. You can’t please everyone and I wanted to avoid the situation.
What’s your thought? Am I a selfish [Insert Expletive Here]? I kinda feel like I am. But I also don’t want to get caught up in a restaurant struggle with who can eat this and who can’t. I got the short end of the stick last time, which is why I’m not getting sucked into that situation again.
Would respect your opinion on the matter.
Dear Wedding Guest:
Your query made Etiquetteer reflect on how weddings bring together people who generally never see each other again. In the late 1980s Etiquetteer was invited to a wedding out of state as a plus one of a colleague who was a cousin of either the bride or the groom. The wedding was memorable for someone’s grandfather spitting into Etiquetteer’s coffee cup*. Etiquetteer never saw any of those people again. But that’s no excuse to let down your Perfect Propriety.
Making your own plans outside the official wedding schedule is not a violation of etiquette. You could really describe it as Self Care. If your sister-in-law insisted, you could very politely agree to attend as long as you didn’t have to be involved in the arrangements. “It would be great for us not to be involved in the planning, so if you let us know when and where to be, we’ll show up on time.”
But it would be a very different thing if you were to cut a wedding function to which you’d been invited by the Happy Couple or their parents, such as the rehearsal dinner, reception, morning after breakfast . . . or the wedding itself. (It’s not unheard of, but it is Not Perfectly Proper. You earn access to the open bar by sitting through the service.) That’s a no-no.
Etiquetteer wishes you and your husband guilt-free dinners during Wedding Week, and happy engaging conversations with all the other guests.
*Is this really why plus ones are invited to weddings, to insulate family members from other family members? Frankly, it calls into question the entire practice of inviting plus ones.