Dear Hildegarde: Your Questions Answered

Dear Mrs. Fillmore,

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! I was recently invited to a bridal shower for a member of my church, whom I do not know very well. All of the women of my church are invited to the shower (I should clarify here that it is an "open" invitation to all the women of the church, no personal invitation was received). The shower is to be held in two weeks, however, no invitation to the wedding itself has been extended to me thus far -- and the wedding is to be held in February! Is it considered bad form to invite someone to your bridal shower but not the actual wedding? If so, what is the appropriate response?

Signed,
Wet Blanket

Dear Blanket,

I am so glad that you wrote to me to-day. It sounds like you have already been taking my course as you can recognize bad form like a trooper! I see two problems here: the first is the "open invitation" for the bridal shower. A bridal shower is a time of fun, fellowship, and celebration for all involved and is intended for the bride and her most intimate friends (and/or intimate friends of the mother of the bride). The open invitation here is the equivalent of President Bush extending an open invitation for America to attend his daughter's upcoming bridal shower. It is simply rediculous to offer such a thing. It is basically just asking for gifts and is a very lazy way to capture everyone's attendance. Invitations to any event should be deliberate as to make it personal for the recipient. I would question (in private, of course) the manners of a person who would do such a thing. To the second issue: it is very poor form to invite someone to a shower and not to the wedding. It is in essence telling the guest that she is welcome to give the bride a gift (and receive a light luncheon) but she is not important enough for the parents to pay for her seat at the more expensive wedding reception. The shower invitation list should always be a more selective group of ladies taken from the prepared wedding guest list.

My suggestions here are as follows: you need only attend the shower if you like the person and of course, if you do attend, you should bring a gift. However, if you decide not to attend, you need not send a gift either, unless again, you truly like the person being honored, etc. Now, if you are a person of importance at your church, i.e., pastor's wife, committee chairman, etc., you may just have to attend and bring a gift and just ignore the fact that you were not invited to the wedding. Politics are everything these days. That is the ladylike thing to do.

I hope these suggestions have been helpful to you. Good luck with whatever you decide!

Until next time...

HF

Do you have a question for Mrs. Fillmore? Please send an email to hildegardefillmore@hotmail.com.