Proper Etiquette

This past weekend, my two married friends had us all over to celebrate fall and have a bonfire in their backyard--and when I say bonfire, I mean they lit an instant log in their fire pit and we all sat around it and drank. It's the closest thing to being in the country as you can get in Philadelphia. It was freezing cold but we all managed to be bundled up (and buzzed ) enough that we barely noticed. While sitting outside, an interesting topic came up which became the conversation for the majority of the night and the subject of the following post.

My friend Mike's cousin is getting married in a few months. Her family is pretty well off--they own a string of pizza parlor's throughout the Philadelphia region (and no, I will not be name dropping) and her father just opened one in South Philly, which she is running. We call her the  "Princess of Pizza," because basically she's a spoiled bitch, which I'm allowed to say because I've known her since I was 13. Needless to say this wedding is going to be huge and very expensive. The reception itself is going to cost her parents $170 a head and 300 people were invited. There's is also a big, Irish family so there are a lot of bodies to pack into the reception.

Naturally, with weddings that big and a family to match, there had to be a cut-off for invitees. Usually this involves an age limit or only married/engaged/seriously dating people are invited with dates. It's proper wedding etiquette to be honest. With an age-limit, it makes sense to only invite people who are 21+, especially if there will be alcohol involved. Underage drinking is always an issue with weddings and doing away with the temptation and the drama is more easily done.

Well, Mike's cousin went to the extreme.

Instead of making a 21 age cut-off, she decided to increase the age to 25.

Yes, pretty random. Her reasoning? No one under 25 could afford to give the couple a good enough monetary gift to make up for the money they put out.Takes a lot of balls to actually admit that. Makes her sound 100% self-absorbed and spoiled and that the wedding is just a chance to earn a little cash. But as stated, she is a spoiled bitch so that statement didn't surprise me.

Luckily, my friend Mike and his wife just made the cut-off so they will have the pleasure of attending the "wedding of the century,"--which will end in the divorce of the century (oops, did I just say that outloud?)--but his one cousin, who was at the bonfire, was not. She will only be 24 at the time of wedding and will join 3 other of her cousins who are close but not close enough to the appropriate age. The rest of her immediate family is invited--including her two sisters who have parts to play in the actual ceremony. Naturally, she feels a bit left out and a tad angry but not for the reason you think.

Being the "Princess of Pizza," the bride has decided to invite every single one of her personal employees from the South Philly branch. Which is very nice and respectable. But here's the catch--there are quite a number of these employees who aren't at the age cut-off and are in fact quite a few years younger. Not only are they still invited but they are also invited with dates.

To make matters worse, the bride called the younger cousin to basically cover her own ass. She apologized and gave the whole sob story about how expensive weddings are. Then she gave the following options to her cousin

1. Come with the bride's younger brother as his date--who by the way isn't even 21 but naturally had to be invited.
2. Be a member of the "B" list of guests and wait for the RSVPs to come in. If an actual invitee backs out, she's in.
3. Replace her sister as a reader at the ceremony, which would garner an automatic invitation to the wedding.

The phone call, which wasn't really heartfelt or considerate in anyway, only furthered the younger cousin's anger. Which honestly, I can't really blame her. I'd be pissed as hell if I was in her shoes. And the so-called "options" were basically saying "I still don't want to invite you outright, so here are options so my hands are clean in this." Due to her anger, the cousin asked for our opinions as we were outsiders looking in. So here is my two cents on the topic;

First of all, if you are planning an exuberantly expensive wedding and you have a huge family and thus need to institute an age-limit to keep the party list down, you need to actually stick by it. There cannot be exceptions to the rules or people who slide in on the down low. No wiggle room or special treatment. If you are under the designated age, sorry but you're not invited. This only causes a lot of drama, especially within families. When my uncle got married, he had an age limit of 18 for his wedding, which made sense because I have a very, very huge family. I was 15 and really wasn't too upset about not being invited--I have two younger sisters who were also not invited and at the time, I really wasn't too interested in wedding festivities. Until I found out that my two cousins were invited--my two cousins who were younger than me. That really burnt my toast, let me tell you. It all went back to the male-centric way my family operates--that nothing I do ever measures up to my male cousins or how I and my sisters are easily over-looked by my grandmother because we were born female--and that my far younger male cousins were just more important. It was a slap to the face and something that still angers me.

So again, keep to your own rules!

Secondly, inviting employees is nice, but should they really override actual family members? I get it. Most people spend more time at work then they do at home, and relationships with co-workers are almost on the same level as family. But to bend an age-rule AND invite these people with dates is a little much. If you were inviting solo members from work, go ahead and invite them with dates so they aren't sitting alone and it isn't awkward. But this particular bride invited every single member of her staff, so what is the point of inviting them with dates? If you're going to sacrifice inviting family members, don't invite employees with dates---or only invite them with dates if you actually know their significant other. Personally, I'd rather not have a bunch of random people at the most important day of my life. You don't know how these people are outside of work and with their significant other.

So, if you're crunching numbers nix the dates first and not the family.

Thirdly, if you are going to back peddle on an age-limit or try to make excuses once confronted by a non-invitee, don't make yourself into the victim and put the decision in their lap. This particular situation probably wouldn't have escalated if the bride hadn't called her cousin, tried to make her feel bad and then gave her those asinine options. It really made the situation ten times worse because it made the non-invitee feel like shit even more. Obviously the bride had no issue with not sticking to her rule, but her cousin just wasn't worth putting out $170 for. And those options are only meant to not make her feel guilty.

So, stick to your guns. Don't play the victim.

We talked back and forth about this issue, discussing our thoughts, the best way to remedy the situation, and what we would do in her situation. It is a pretty tricky situation especially when you throw those options into the mix. But, in the end we all thought the following was the best thing to do.

1. Be a "B" list attendee. Wait for the RSVPs to come in and once invited, RSVP yes. But.....don't show up.

It's a nice little F U to the bride for not inviting her to begin with. Make her shell out the money for nothing. Either way, I'd totally crash the wedding and get really, really drunk.

But that's just me.