Etiquette by Emily Post (top novels to read .txt) 📖
- Author: Emily Post
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It is very bad manners to invite one person to your house and leave out another with whom you are also talking. You should wait for an opportunity when the latter is not included in your conversation.
In good society ladies do not kiss each other when they meet either at parties or in public.
It is well to remember that nothing more blatantly stamps an ill-bred person than the habit of patting, nudging or taking hold of people. "Keep your hands to yourself!" might almost be put at the head of the first chapter of every book on etiquette.
Be very chary of making any such remarks as "I am afraid I have stayed too long," or "I must apologize for hurrying off," or "I am afraid I have bored you to death talking so much." All such expressions are self-conscious and stupid. If you really think you are staying too long or leaving too soon or talking too much—don't!
An Invalid's Visit By Proxy
It is not necessary that an invalid make any attempt to return the visits to her friends who are attentive enough to go often to see her. But if a stranger calls on her—particularly a stranger who may not know that she is always confined to the house, it is correct for a daughter or sister or even a friend to leave the invalid's card for her and even to pay a visit should she find a hostess "at home." In this event the visitor by proxy lays her own card as well as that of the invalid on the tray proffered her. Upon being announced to the hostess, she naturally explains that she is appearing in place of her mother (or whatever relation the invalid is to her) and that the invalid herself is unable to make any visits.
A lady never pays a party call on a gentleman. But if the gentleman who has given a dinner has his mother (or sister) staying with him and if the mother (or sister) chaperoned the party, cards should of course be left upon her.
Having risen to go, go! Don't stand and keep your hostess standing while you say good-by, and make a last remark last half an hour!
Few Americans are so punctilious as to pay their dinner calls within twenty-four hours; but it is the height of correctness and good manners.
When a gentleman, whose wife is away, accepts some one's hospitality, it is correct for his wife to pay the party call with (or for) him, since it is taken for granted that she would have been included had she been at home.
In other days a hostess thought it necessary to change quickly into a best dress if important company rang her door-bell. A lady of fashion to-day receives her visitors at once in whatever dress she happens to be wearing, since not to keep them waiting is the greater courtesy.
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INVITATIONS, ACCEPTANCES AND REGRETSThe Formal Invitation
As an inheritance from the days when Mrs. Brown presented her compliments and begged that Mrs. Smith would do her the honor to take a dish of tea with her, we still—notwithstanding the present flagrant disregard of old-fashioned convention—send our formal invitations, acceptances and regrets, in the prescribed punctiliousness of the third person.
All formal invitations, whether they are to be engraved or to be written by hand (and their acceptances and regrets) are invariably in the third person, and good usage permits of no deviation from this form.
Wedding Invitations
The invitation to the ceremony is engraved on the front sheet of white note-paper. The smartest, at present, is that with a raised margin—or plate mark. At the top of the sheet the crest (if the family of the bride has the right to use one) is embossed without color. Otherwise the invitation bears no device. The engraving may be in script, block, shaded block, or old English. The invitation to the ceremony should always request "the honour" of your "presence," and never the "pleasure" of your "company." (Honour is spelled in the old-fashioned way, with a "u" instead of "honor.")
Enclosed in Two Envelopes
Two envelopes are never used except for wedding invitations or announcements; but wedding invitations and all accompaning cards are always enclosed first in an inner envelope that has no mucilage on the flap, and is superscribed "Mr. and Mrs. Jameson Greatlake," without address. This is enclosed in an outer envelope which is sealed and addressed:
Mr. and Mrs. Jameson Greatlake,24 Michigan Avenue,
Chicago.
To those who are only "asked to the church" no house invitation is enclosed.
The Church Invitation
The proper form for an invitation to a church ceremony is:
(Form No. 1.)
Mr. and Mrs. John Huntington Smith
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Mary Katherine
to
Mr. James Smartlington
on Tuesday the first of November
at twelve o'clock
at St. John's Church
in the City of New York
(Form No. 2.)
Mr. and Mrs. John Huntington Smith
request the honour of
Miss Pauline Town's
presence at the marriage of their daughter
Mary Katherine
to
Mr. James Smartlington
on Tuesday the first of November
at twelve o'clock
at St. John's Church
(The size of invitations is 5-1/8 wide by 7-3/8 deep.)
(When the parents issue the invitations for a wedding at a house other than their own.)
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Littlehouse
request the honour of
presence at the marriage of their daughter
Betty
to
Mr. Frederic Robinson
on Saturday the fifth of November
at four o'clock
at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Sterlington
Tuxedo Park
New York
R.s.v.p.
No variation is permissible in the form of a wedding invitation. Whether fifty guests are to be invited or five thousand, the paper, the engraving and the wording, and the double envelope are precisely the same.
Church Card of Admittance
In cities or wherever the general public is not to be admitted, a card of about the size of a small visiting card is enclosed with the church invitation:
Please present this card,
at St. John's Church
on Tuesday the first of November
Cards to Reserved Pews
To the family and very intimate friends who are to be seated in especially designated pews:
Please present this to an usher
Pew No. ——
on Thursday the ninth of May
Engraved pew cards are ordered only for very big weddings where twenty or more pews are to be reserved. The more usual custom—at all small and many big weddings—is for the mother of the bride, and the mother of the bridegroom each to write on her personal visiting card:
Pew No. 7
Mrs. John Huntington Smith
Four West Thirty-sixth Street
A card for the reserved enclosure but no especial pew is often inscribed "Within the Ribbons."
Invitation To The House
The invitation to the breakfast or reception following the church ceremony is engraved on a card to match the paper of the church invitation and is the size of the latter after it is folded for the envelope:
Mr. and Mrs. John Huntington Smith
request the pleasure of
Mr. & Mrs. James Greatlake's
company on Tuesday the first of November
at half after four o'clock
at Four West Thirty-sixth Street
R.s.v.p.
Ceremony And Reception Invitation In One
Occasionally, especially for a country wedding, the invitation to the breakfast or the reception is added to the one to the ceremony:
Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Chatterton
request the honour of
Mr & Mrs. Worldly's
presence at the marriage of their daughter
Hester
to
Mr. James Town, junior
on Tuesday the first of June
at three o'clock
at St. John's Church
and afterwards at Sunnylawn
Ridgefield
R.s.v.p.
Or the invitation reads "at twelve o'clock, at St. John's Church, and afterwards at breakfast at Sunnylawn"; but "afterwards to the reception at Sunnylawn" is wrong.
The Invitation To A House Wedding
Is precisely the same except that "at Sunnylawn" or "at Four West Thirty-sixth Street" is put in place of "at St. John's Church," and an invitation to stay on at a house, to which the guest is already invited, is not necessary.
The Train Card
If the wedding is to be in the country, a train card is enclosed:
A special train will leave Grand Central Station at 12:45 P.M.,
arriving at Ridgefield at 2:45. Returning, train will leave
Ridgefield at 5:10 P.M., arriving New York at 7.02 P.M.
Show this card at the gate.
Invitation To Reception And Not To Ceremony
It sometimes happens that the bride prefers none but her family at the ceremony, and a big reception. This plan is chosen where the mother of the bride or other very near relative is an invalid. The ceremony may take place at a bedside, or it may be that the invalid can go down to the drawing-room with only the immediate families, and is unequal to the presence of many people.
Under these circumstances the invitations to the breakfast or reception are sent on sheets of note paper like that used for church invitations, but the wording is:
Mr. and Mrs. Grantham Jones
request the pleasure of your company
at the wedding breakfast of their daughter
Muriel
and
Mr. Burlingame Ross, Jr.
on Saturday the first of November
at one o'clock
at Four East Thirty-Eighth Street
The favor of an
answer is requested
The "pleasure of your company" is requested in this case instead of the "honour of your presence."
The Written Wedding Invitation
If a wedding is to be so small that no invitations are engraved, the notes of invitation should be personally written by the bride:
Sally Dear:
Our wedding is to be on Thursday the tenth at half-past twelve, Christ Church Chantry. Of course we want you and Jack and the children! And we want all of you to come afterward to Aunt Mary's, for a bite to eat and to wish us luck.
Affectionately,
Helen.
or
Dear Mrs. Kindhart:
Dick and I are to be married at Christ Church Chantry at noon on Thursday the tenth. We both want you and Mr. Kindhart to come to the church and afterward for a very small breakfast to my Aunt's—Mrs. Slade—at Two Park Avenue.
With much love from us both,
Affectionately,
Helen.
Wedding Announcements
If no general invitations were issued to the church, an announcement engraved on note paper like that of the invitation to the ceremony, is sent to the entire visiting list of both the bride's and the groom's family:
Mr. and Mrs. Maynard Barnes
have the honour to announce
the marriage of their daughter
Priscilla
to
Mr. Eben Hoyt Leaming
on Tuesday the twenty-sixth of April
One thousand nine hundred and twenty-two
in the City of New York
The Second Marriage
Invitations
Invitations to the marriage of a widow—if she is very young—are sent in the name of her parents exactly as were the invitations to her first wedding, excepting that her name instead of being merely Priscilla is now written Priscilla Barnes Leaming, thus:
Mr. and Mrs. Maynard Barnes
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Priscilla Barnes Leaming
to
etc.
Announcements
For a young widow's marriage are also the same as for a first wedding:
Mr. and Mrs. Maynard Barnes
have the honour to announce
the marriage of their daughter
Priscilla Barnes Leaming
to
Mr. Worthington
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