Know The Rules, And When To Break Them
Emily Post is going to roll over in her grave. I’m talking about the rules of wedding etiquette. Or more importantly, when to blur the lines.
I recently spent a precious Saturday and Sunday in a classroom of all places. Learning what? Wedding planning.
Let’s rewind a wee bit… 2012 is an interesting year so far.
After a long and drawn out hiring process I turned down a much-anticipated job offer from Anthropologie and took a promotion at my current job instead. While my not-so-glamorous “day job” pays the bills, it does not allow for the creative juices to flow. Truthfully, the new position keeps me much busier than before and I’m running all over the greater Toronto area to visit different offices. One of my few stress releases at the moment is eating blogging and planning our wedding.
I suppose I’m really lucky that so far, *knock on wood*, our wedding planning process has been relatively stress free. (I probably just jinxed myself. Ask me again in 6 months.)
Anyway, I decided that this was the year to stop dreaming and start doing. You may or may not know, that I started writing for Wedding Obsession before I was even engaged. I didn’t start out here as the “Ontario bride-to-be blogger”. Nope. I was just a girl who loved the topic, and hoped that some day I might make my way in to a career in the wedding industry.
I had been toying with the idea of wedding planning for about 5 years and I finally decided it was time. So I enrolled myself in a WPIC course at the suggestion of Melissa and that leads us back to this post.
The most shocking part of the class had nothing to do with budgets or Canadian marital stats. No. It was the etiquette portion.
| image via Amazon.com |
Did you know, that according to the rules of etiquette, it is in poor taste not to hand address your wedding invitations?
I didn’t and I was shocked. Not that I have poor handwriting or I’m lazy, but maybe because I grew up in a generation that relies on computer and smart phones, I’m perfectly alright with a typed label addressing my invitations. I know how much time and care it takes to type and space everything out correctly, align the labels and printer correctly and agonise over the best font.
So in my humble opinion, this is a rule worth breaking. Honestly, who knows, (except you because now I’ve told you), that it’s supposedly rude not to hand-address a wedding invite? If it’s pretty, how can it offend? I went ahead and bought some Martha Stewart labels . Take that Emily Post!
Absolutely, there are rules of etiquette worth following. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying to throw them all out the window. They’re not just about invitations either. But if you’re curious, Sarah, from Hip Ink offers some amazing and informative posts on invitation etiquette .
I think the key, in this day and age, is to do what suits you as a couple, while keeping in mind what is polite and won’t offend anyone (or appear tacky).
I was also surprised to learn that guests over the age of 16 are meant to have their own invitation. Interesting. That can get pretty costly, having to send multiple invitations to the same household. So perhaps, this is another one you might want to reconsider if doing so would greatly increase the number of invitations required, therefore increasing your budget. Will your teenaged cousin really be upset if they’re included on a family invite? Hey, if your budget allows it, send them a separate invite. They might think that’s awesome.
What about your friend’s flavor-of-the-week girlfriend? Do you need to invite their latest catch? According to the rules of etiquette, only if they’ve been dating 6 months or more. While that might ease your mind to leave whatshername off the guest list, your friend might not be completely up to date on what Emily Post has to say on the matter and be pretty offended. Up to you. Think about it carefully.
What about after the wedding… If a gift didn’t appear right away from Uncle Buck, don’t fret and don’t go calling to see if it got lost in the mail either. Guests have up to a year to send a wedding gift. And if they take 11 months and 29 days to get you that toaster, don’t think you can return the favor by slacking on a thank you card. Handwritten thank yous should be sent no later than three months from receiving the gift.
Bottom line, I’m going to look at the rules of etiquette more like guidelines, when planning my own wedding and also planning others’ as a professional. Educate yourself. They’re there for a reason, but in this day and age its important to choose wisely which ones absolutely must be followed and which rules we can bend a little.
- Krista
0 评论: