Ignoring invitation for want of stamps?

Dear Miss Manners: Is it customary to put return postage on envelopes for RSVPs in invitations, or does one expect that the guest should pay for his or her own postage to return? It seems that if I expect the invitee to send the card back, I should make it as convenient as possible.

Gentle Reader: Miss Manners roundly condemns people who are so rude as to fail to respond to invitations. But she finds it exasperating when the injured hosts ascribe to pathetic excuses on how to placate them.

Surely you do not think that people of good will simply ignore those who are offering to entertain them because of the difficulty in affixing a stamp?

What errant guests actually admit is that they don’t respond because they don’t know if they will feel like going when the time comes. Then they will just show up or not. An equally rude variation on this is to accept the invitation but not consider it binding.

So making it easier is not likely to help.

Dear Miss Manners: My son is getting married soon and has chosen not to have a traditional rehearsal dinner. His father and I are going to pay for his wedding dinner and brunch the morning after. We also want to invite the out-oftowners and the bridal party for cocktails and appetizers the night before the wedding.

But I don’t know how to create an invitation asking friends and family to join us after cocktails and to have dinner on their own. I need to get a count for the restaurant.

Gentle Reader: This is a situation that could work out easily, when your guests see that you are staying on to dinner, and might naturally ask to join you. Or they might just make their own reservations.

Miss Manners understands that you are doing a lot in connection with this wedding, and has no complaint about your ending your hospitality that evening with the cocktail party, while still being available for conviviality with whoever chooses to hang around. She would only like to disabuse you of the notion that you can act as hosts while delegating that worry about the cost to people you call guests.