Etiquette
 

My sister's daughter in law , [my nephew's wife] is having a baby shower. Her sister sent out invitations with an email RSVP. I have two other sisters their invitations came addressed to their husband one of whom is deceased. Not to MRS but to their respective husband by first name. My sisters were a bit weirded out and claimed only to me, that their husbands won't be attending and they were not invited.

Tryong to fix this I sent an email to the person that was throwing the party as instructed to RSVP


Hello XXXX,
I plan to be at the baby shower. I am also writing because I am sure
this was a unintended mistake but 2 invitations were sent to my
brother in laws rather than their wives, one of whom died in
September. {XXXXXX XXXXXXX, XXXX XXXXXXX/deceased] I thought
maybe you would like to correct this by sending invitations made out
to XXXXXX XXXX and XXXXXX XXXXXX. Thanks for your consideration.

I received no response this was 2 weeks ago and neither did my sisters receive an altered invitation. They do not know that I wrote this person. This is going to be a big mess what do I do know? :neutral:

can you call them? some things are better unelectronically

This is a job for your sister (the soon-to-be grandmother) to handle. She should be able to get together with her daughter-in-law to confirm that your other two sisters should have been invited, and extend the appropriate invitations to them.

UGH I meant to write NOW not know...

Normally I would agree with you CF but since the shower is being thrown by someone other than the DIL herself and this person lives in another state, it really is not my "niece in law's" problem and I don't want to make it her problem. There was only an email for contact.

I have told my older sister about the situation but she is not the one throwing the shower. I am thinking of buying a gift, and sending it on with my sister. I hate family weirdness. :thepain:

ETA: My name was not correct on my invite but at least they got my first name right.

Handling (hosting) these sorts of things looks a lot easier than it is. A lot of folks who attempt this are way out of their depth, this seems to be the case here. A good host/hostess would enlist the help of a reliable person(s) from "both sides of the aisle" to ensure names and other particulars are correct. Then there is the reality that everyone needs to be invited unless there are truly extenuating circumstances. Boors and gossips need to be suffered, but junkies who will steal things do not (for example)

As for what to do, how close are you to the couple? How much does it mean to your sister? As always, taking the high road, like good manners, never goes out of style.

I was totally channeling Emily Post or someone there. That's so unlike me.

I am pretty sure they did not mean to invite men to this or should I be mad they did not invite my husband? :eyebrow:

If they did not mean to invite my sisters why invite their husbands one of whom is dead?

trainwreck

Is sending a gift with my sister and avoiding this trainwreck a bad idea?

If nothing else, your sister and/or daughter-in-law should have a phone number for the person hosting. Instead of trying to dance around the issue of whether the other sisters were supposed to be invited or not, you could simply say that you wanted to check whether the men were really invited, because you've never been to a coed baby shower.

Very few things make me miss the UK. This is one of the very few.

I thought you just forgot the quote marks...:D

Perhaps the original sender thought you were making her aware of a mistake, rather than asking a question as to whether they are invited. It's not 100% clear from your mail, after all you worded it "maybe you would like to". She might have read it and thought "Oops!" and not picked up on the suggestion that you re-issue.

People often see what they want to, especially if they've just been embarrassed by the faux pas of sending an invite to a dead man.

They may have decided that they don't have any more invitations and that if they don't answer maybe this will go away. ;) The situation I am in is if I don't go I am an ass and if I go I am an ass. So I convinced my sister to call this women and ask WTF is going. Even if they are out of invites they should buy a couple of generic and re issue. I don't think that there is an issue of whether they were invited or not but ... well trainwreck :thepain:

So they messed up. The women were certainly invited, not their husbands.

Odd reaction, to me, but whatever. I would venture to guess there is more to this their relationship or ???) than them just seeing the mistake for what it was and moving on.

you tried to help and all - I get that, but it seems to be more of an overreaction that is creating whatever train wreck, if any, there will be.

How is this clear to you? My brother in law's first name is Celestino my sister does not have a name even close to that. Someone took the time to write that name on an invitation. My BIL SXXX is dead why send a dead man an invite? I don't know if any other men are invited. Its hard not to be offended by this and even further since I sent an email 2x and got no response.
My sisters are upset by this... understandably...at least to me. :(

Reminds me of someone I know who got married on Thanksgiving. I asked a mutual friend "Who gets married on Thanksgiving?" Without missing a beat he said "Someone who doesn't want anyone to come to his wedding."

And if they are playing that game I wanna stay home :) But I have another sister :(

Sorry Nirvana - Just thought I would lay out an alternative scenario/possibility/theory.
No one knows at this point, because no one has actually spoken to her in person, nor does she care enough apparently to call the "offended parties" or anyone else...

Still seems to me like someone simply made a stupid/careless/thoughtless mistake. I can't imagine she intended to invite the men.

Who actually wrote them out? Was there a friend who helped who messed up and thought(hoped) no one would notice? Where did they get their info? Do these women have a history? Is there bad blood a backstory... Were THEY invited to similar things or were they left out?

Could this have been done with malicious intent? Certainly, if so, I wouldn't attend either. It just seems a little too cruel to me. Is it more likely that someone screwed up and just cannot admit it? That was more my guess.

I was assuming these are all wonderful people like yourself - since you are all related.
Sorry if I offended you - that certainly was not my intent.

I'll go back to not trying to help. Seems a much safer route for me.

Celestino could be mistaken for a women's name - but only from someone who is not aware of the family at all, of course. What if the list given to the invite maker was an old Christmas Card list? I know I haven't amended mine in a while.

Do the invitations say Mr. celestinohusband or Mrs. celestinohusband?

They Obviously did it on Purpose Just to Piss you off

There is no Mr or Mrs on the envelope, my other BIl's name was Scott not really a gal's name. I don't think anyone did anything on purpose. Its just weird and without telling any of my sisters I thought the best way to fix the "faux pas" was to re send invitations with the correct names. If only certain men and certain women are invited [very odd] I don't want to go. Don't think that is the case. I will let you all know if my sister gets an answer from her DIl's sister.

'cause dead men tell no tales, and what kind of man would be better at a baby shower?

Bernie? :rolleyes:

If they were trying to be very formal, then Mrs. Husbandsfullname would be correct. Maybe they tried this and messed up. This all sounds like a mountain out of a molehill, though. srsly. Just go if you want to and don't if you don't. Are they going to turn people away?

Formality would have required MISS, MS, MRS or MR. None of the invitations included a prefacing title. If I go my 2 sisters that were technically not invited will be pissed. They claim they were not invited so not going. If I don't go my other sister that is the MIL will be pissed. Its only a big deal in the architecture of my dysfunctional family. :(

get yer 2 sisters that got snubbed Drunk and crash the party !!!!

Classy LOL! :p:

= they messed up

your two pissed sisters are pedantic drama queens. They should go if they want to and you should stop fretting.

I wouldn't call the one whose husband died in Sept a drama queen ...the other? Yah probably.

Should I go? Maybe but I have a great excuse should I need it! We started with 55 calves to be born and we have 51 to go.