Miss Manners: I’ve been squeezed out of a tiny wedding!

July 28 at 12:00 AM

Dear Miss Manners: My stepson is getting married during the pandemic and is now able to invite only a tiny number of guests. He plans to have his big wedding at a later date. The guests now include only the bridegroom, their son, the couple standing up for them and their biological parents.

I feel that that is disrespectful and inappropriate. Am I wrong in feeling this way?

Whom would you ask them to eliminate to allow you one of those slots?

Oh, whoops — Miss Manners had failed to notice that although you listed the bridegroom, who is not exactly a “guest,” you did not list the bride.

But the bride is only the first whose claim to this highly restricted gathering seems stronger than yours. Later, when larger festivities are held — it will not actually be a “wedding,” as the couple will already be married — you should be included. Now is the time to withdraw gracefully, with all your good wishes.

Dear Miss Manners: My mother taught me that it wasn’t in good taste to display my framed photographs of friends and family members in the living room (the “public area”) and that I should display them, instead, in the bedrooms or “family room/den.” The exception would be a portrait (painting) or the like.

Is this still true?

I live in a small duplex with only one living area. My son, after a decade of my begging, gave me a framed photo of himself. After I unwrapped it and thanked him, I immediately put it on my mantel. I think I’m going to leave it there, right or wrong. However, that made me wonder what the reasons were behind the rule my mother taught me, and if they were still valid.

The idea was that public rooms were for art, and private ones for that photograph of you with a movie star you once met at a charity function, or the one of your now-teenage child as a toddler taking a bubble bath.

But then photography came to be recognized as an art. So that shot of the woods with the early ray of sunlight can be shown in the living room, as can photographic portraits.

Of course, that was before the age of the selfie. Miss Manners cautions you that neither your snapshot nor that picture of your fancy dinner qualifies.

Dear Miss Manners: My husband and I have begun receiving correspondence from an organization to which we have given several donations.

In their correspondence, they address us as Mr. and Rev. Jack March. As the wife and the reverend in the family, I find this odd and amusing.

Would it be rude of me to request that, in future correspondence, they simply address us as Jack and Ginger?

Just because your title is being ridiculously misused doesn’t mean you have to forgo its being used at all. Annoying you would be counterproductive to the organization’s goals, so Miss Manners assures you that it would be helpful, rather than rude, if you informed it of the correct way to address you and your husband. It is as follows:

The Reverend Ginger March

Mr. Jack March.

New Miss Manners columns are posted Monday through Saturday on washingtonpost.com/advice. You can send questions to Miss Manners at her website, missmanners.com. You can also follow her @RealMissManners.

2020, by Judith Martin

Source:WP