ArcaMax

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I got married recently. It is a second marriage for both of us, but our first weddings were two decades ago, and we wanted to have a special event that really felt like a wedding.

We paid for the whole thing ourselves. It was simple and relatively small, but it was definitely and unambiguously a wedding: We sent paper invitations, had a catered meal and an open bar, and I wore a big white wedding gown.

On our wedding website, and when asked in person, we said, "No gifts, please" (we have plenty of stuff!), but we also provided a list of our favorite nonprofits if anyone wanted to make a donation. We also planned to make donations in honor of our guests, in lieu of favors, and will share that with folks in our thank-you cards.

As expected, some people gave gifts anyway, some made donations and some wrote lovely cards. All good, right?

Not quite. What has us absolutely befuddled is the number of guests who did nothing at all. These guests spanned generations, so it couldn't be chalked up to "kids these days" or any sort of age-related etiquette. Many of these are the kinds of folks who regularly write cards and give gifts. It's enough people that we genuinely wondered whether a pile of cards got lost at the end of the night.

I know we probably just need to let this go, but it rankles. I cannot imagine showing up completely empty-handed to any party -- much less a wedding! -- and not even taking the time to write a basic congratulatory message.

We truly and absolutely do not want gifts, but is it wrong to want people to take five minutes to write a card? Is there any polite way to figure out what the heck happened (and if maybe cards did get lost)? And if not, or if it turns out a whole lot of friends and family just failed to do even the most minimal thing to honor our wedding (and marriage), how do we get over this?

GENTLE READER: Try really, really hard.

Your guests followed your explicit instructions. And as insulting as you seem to find it that they did not also guess at your unstated ones, you have not convinced Miss Manners that a crime was committed.

Perhaps, however, she can ease your mind by offering some reasonable explanations: Some people do not wish to make a donation in someone else's name to someone else's charity. Some people are not card writers. And some people saw "No gifts" and stopped reading entirely.

Rather than focus on your very good friends and family who understood the subliminal messaging, you are intent on admonishing the ones who did not. Please get over that.

But if you cannot, the good news is that you seem to have found a life partner who feels similarly. May you two have a long and happy life together focusing on your various grudges.

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

Copyright 2026 Judith Martin

COPYRIGHT 2026 JUDITH MARTIN