I have never been more astounded at the lack of the knowledge of proper etiquette in today’s modern electronic age as I was when it came time to mail out my wedding invitations. The questioned was posed to me of just emailing my wedding invitations to all of my guests. I, of course, was horrified to be asked such a question; it was out of the question of course. Etiquette requires that an invitation to an event be mailed and handwritten.

Many of my friend’s and associates were completely comfortable with this idea. I however am not. Many of you, who know me, know that I have ranted on this topic before. I understand that most people are either connected at the hip (per se) to their notebook, netbook, iPad, iPhone, Droid, etc….. This makes receiving and storing things such as events, completely easy. However, it is not an excuse not to now or understand proper etiquette.

The thing that really griped me was when people simply either did not READ their invitation or were not informed of the proper etiquette to understand a wedding invitation. I received many questions from invitees, if so and so was invited; well I assumed they had read their invitation. The invitations read Mr. & Mrs _______ and on the inside envelope it said Jane and John Doe. To those of us that understand proper etiquette this meant ONLY Jane and John were invited. Yet we continued to receive questions about whether other people in the family were invited. We even had some quests who assumed every one in the family was invited, even though the invitation specifically listed those invited. This made for a very uncomfortable situation to have to keep explaining how to read a wedding invitation.

I know we live in a modern age of technology, however, parents PLEASE inform your children of proper etiquette and social behavior. I understand Home Economics is not taught in schools any more, but this is common knowledge and needs to be learned by the younger generation.

thegeekwife