Not invited to the wedding? You can skip the cake party

Dear Miss Manners: Just when one thinks that the Wedding Industrial Complex cannot get any worse, it does. One of the latest trends is to suggest to brides- and grooms-to-be that it is a good thing to tell those whom they are not inviting to the wedding just why they are not being invited.

The explanation given is that the couple would adore to have you attend their wedding, but that their budget will not permit it. It is also suggested that to make the excluded feel included, they be invited to go along on expeditions to “help choose” the dress, the cake or whatever.

As the occasional recipient of such announcements, I would like your advice about how to respond. It seems churlish to say that you’re relieved not to be invited, but it seems awkward to admit that your feelings are hurt at being excluded. Gentle reader: The temptation to respond, “Oh, please don’t feel bad about this — I wouldn’t have gone anyway,” must be enormous.

Certainly that is a lot more tempting than going shopping with the bride, to watch her spend the money she saved by excluding you, and to help choose a cake of which you will not be offered a slice.

Miss Manners understands that it might sometimes be necessary to respond to pushy people who announce their intention of attending a wedding to which they have not been invited. Even then, pleading budget concerns is ugly, as an admission that the arrangements are more important than the people.

They should be told, “It’s a very small wedding — just family and a few close friends.” And no, that’s not a lie, because “small” and “close” are subject to interpretation. But to say, “Nyah, nyah, you’re not invited to my wedding” to people who were minding their own business is as mean as it is vulgar.

As no invitation was issued, no response is necessary. But you could reassure them that you are not devastated by saying cheerfully, “Fine” or, “That’s quite all right.” And for the sake of form, Miss Manners hopes you will add your good wishes. Dear Miss Manners: My son was killed a little over five years ago in a street-racing collision. He was in no way at fault; my two oldest sons were traveling home and were hit head-on.

Life has been incredibly difficult ever since; I miss him with all my heart. He was the most amazing son — he’d just graduat- ed magna cum laude with a degree in philosophy and was going into the field of missions.

There were so many flowers at his funeral that as I was writing thank-you notes, I could not figure out from the name who one of the arrangements was from. A month later, the driver who killed my son was arrested; that was when I learned his name, and when I learned who had sent the flowers. (His mother, I’m sure, had placed his name on them.)

Howcan you kill someone and send flowers to their funeral, thinking that would make up for it? It absolutely compounded the pain, which some people seem prone to do. Gentle reader: Please understand that it is with the deepest sympathy that Miss Manners feels obliged to remind you that it is not those flowers that cause the terrible pain that you suffer.

Nor is it useful to think of that gesture as having been intended to “make up for” the horror of your loss. Most likely, the flowers were sent out of guilt or shame.

And while learning his name was a reminder, it was at least in the context of his being held accountable for criminal behavior.

Miss Manners suspects that the reason you are still thinking of those flowers, five years later, is that you wrote conventional thanks for them at the time, figuring it was a well-wisher whom you didn’t know, only to have this seem to you, in retrospect, as if it constituted forgiveness. She can assure you that anyone who was able to feel guilt or shame — and you may be right that it was the mother — is not going to consider that absolved by a mere acknowledgment of the flowers. She recommends leaving the killer to his own deserved suffering. Dear Miss Manners: I have new furniture. I’m having a large buffet party, and I don’t want people in the new living room. Howdo I keep food out of my living room? Gentle reader: A velvet rope across the door? A mean-looking bouncer?

Unless you have provided comfortable seating elsewhere, preferably with somewhere to park the plates, Miss Manners fails to see how you can expect your guests to realize that they will not be trusted in your living room.