Mary Killen Mary Killen

Your Problems Solved | 13 September 2003

Etiquette advice from The Spectator's Miss Manners

issue 13 September 2003

Dear Mary…

Q. Like an earlier correspondent this summer, my wife and I find ourselves in the invidious position of being asked, very much as an afterthought, to the wedding of friends to whom we considered ourselves close. Worse, on the grounds that they had ‘run out of’ the real thing, we have not even been sent a proper invitation, but a photocopy. How can we best express our dismay at having this B-list status so blatantly thrust upon us?
H.R.-T., East Lothian

A. Punish the couple by the following means. Arrange for a third party, posing as a Sloaney factotum service, to ring them to arrange a time for courier delivery of a Minton dinner service or similar luxury wedding present. Ten minutes later she should ring back: ‘I’m afraid I actually got you muddled up with some other friends of the R-Ts who are also getting married.

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