Couple’S Arrangement Their Business
Dear Miss Manners: With today’s changing times, how does one address an envelope to couples who are living together but not married?
Gentle reader: One resolutely pretends that times have not changed. Miss Manners finds this saves her a lot of time, not to mention ennui and queasiness, now so often the results of hearing the emotions behind other people’s living arrangements.
It is not up to letter-writers to decide whether people are living together for reasons of true love, false love, companionship or saving rent.
If they have the same name, as sisters or married couples might, one can group them, as in “Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Whifflepoof,” “The Doctors Bridgeport” or “The Misses Stoneground.” If they have different names, you put one name on each line before the address.
Miss Manners has heard it bandied about that those whom she will delicately call couple-couples - married or otherwise romantically linked - should have their names joined with an “and,” while others go on separate lines.
Nonsense. Etiquette does not go poking around to see what people are up to in the privacy of their homes. A household is a household as far as the mail is concerned.
Dear Miss Manners: I am an older student who will receive her BA in June. There are many people (most living at a distance) to whom I would like to send announcements. What is the correct form to use? Should they be informal and handwritten, engraved like a wedding invitation, or something in between?
I would also like to have a party to honor those who have supported me as I have been studying. It takes a community to produce a graduate! I do not want any gifts, as I have already been gifted by their support. I just want to thank my friends and family, and share my joy with them, not send any unintended message. Some people seem to take invitations as more than meets the eye these days.
Gentle reader: They sure do. Maybe it’s because so many people try to slip something else into invitations, such as their shopping lists or hopes of improving their immediate financial future.
This is casting a bad light on people such as yourself, who want to thank their guests, rather than shake them down.
Not that this is your fault, Miss Manners hastens to add. Nevertheless, she commends you for wanting to make sure your guests understand that the party is for them, not for you.
The fastidious way to avoid seeming to honor oneself is by merely inviting people without announcing the occasion in advance. It is only when guests arrive that they are told that the party marks your graduation (or birthday or promotion or engagement), thus enabling them - even the ones who had already guessed from the timing - to moan, “Oh, I wish I’d known, I would have liked to get you something.”
As for those living at a distance, by all means send them formal graduation announcements if your school provides them, along with a letter telling them what you have told Miss Manners - that you appreciate their support. To send them only a formal announcement, and especially to have one made up for the occasion, would be to take a mass approach to what can only have been individual efforts to encourage you.