When in doubt, don’t wear the white dress

Dear Miss Manners: Does the general opprobrium against women wearing white to someone else’s wedding also apply if it is a wedding between two men?

I have a white cocktail dress with a significant amount of black detailing along its sides. It would never be confused for a wedding dress, but I have refrained from wearing it to weddings and rehearsal dinners to avoid any risk of offense. As a result, it doesn’t leave my closet very often.

I am attending a wedding between two men. I am absolutely certain neither will be in a dress. May I wear mine?

Gentle Reader: Might there be an additional reason that you should not wear this dress to that wedding? Is it possible that the attending staff, and perhaps even uninformed guests, might mistake you for the bride?

Miss Manners supposes not. But if the bridal couple favors the tradition that deems both white and black unsuitable in a guest’s dress, that would be a good reason. She will refrain from asking why you bought a dress that you have no occasion to wear.

Dear Miss Manners: I was at a public dance event. My friend had mentioned that a particular dancer was very good, and that she, like me, was widowed. I later saw an opportunity to ask said dancer to dance, and she politely declined.

Afterward, my friend’s boyfriend chastised me for asking the widow to dance because “her husband died only three months ago.”

Is it inappropriate, at a public dance, to ask someone to dance who is known to be widowed?

Gentle Reader: Why does that unauthorized etiquetteer think that it is up to you, and not to the widow herself, to set the terms of her mourning?

It would be indelicate to invite a newly bereaved lady to attend a dance. But Miss Manners notes that this lady has already decided to go, and to dance. Therefore, that is not an issue. She is free to decline your request, as she did, but not to take it as an etiquette violation.

Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.

By Judith Martin and Nicholas Ivor Martin