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It doesn't matter whether the bride or the bridegroom writes the letters of thanks for wedding presents provided that these go out immediately after the arrival of each present and are not in the handwriting of the bride's mother.

Judith Martin

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Judith Martin
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 13
Economist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Present
Brides
Whether
Presents
Doesn
Writes
Mother
Wedding
Bridegroom
Matter
Provided
Handwriting
Writing
Immediately
Arrival
Thanks
Bride
Letters
Arrivals

More quotes by Judith Martin

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Society cannot exist without etiquette ... It never has, and until our own century, everybody knew that.
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Chaperons, even in their days of glory, were almost never able to enforce morality what they did was to force immorality to be discreet. This is no small contribution.
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We are born charming fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.
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People will say, 'Seventy isn't old, it's middle-aged,' and I think, middle of what - 140?
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What we have come to, through a combination of popular psychology and expanding technology, is a presumption that all our thoughts and feelings are worth uttering.
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Being listened to should be sufficiently gratifying in itself, whether or not the advice is followed.
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It is one of Miss Manners's great discoveries that one needn't contradict others in order to set them straight.
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Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without comment is a wonderful social grace.
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The truly essential bargain between host and guest requires the guest only to respond promptly, show up on time, socialize with other guests, thank the host, write additional thanks and reciprocate. You needn't bring anything.
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Nowadays people consider it a disgrace to admit that they are not stressed.
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The etiquette of intimacy is very different from the etiquette of formality, but manners are not just something to show off to the outside world. If you offend the head waiter, you can always go to another restaurant. If you offend the person you live with, it's very cumbersome to switch to a different family.
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The whole country wants civility. Why don't we have it? It doesn't cost anything. No federal funding, no legislation is involved. One answer is the unwillingness to restrain oneself. Everybody wants other people to be polite to them, but they want the freedom of not having to be polite to others.
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Honesty is a virtue, but not the only one. If you're in a courtroom you need the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the living room, sometimes you need anything but. Often.
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We are all entitled to our little harmless habits, but we are not entitled to demand approval for them.
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The challenge of manners is not so much to be nice to someone whose favor and/or person you covet (although more people need to be reminded of that necessity than one would suppose) as to be exposed to the bad manners of others without imitating them.
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One of the big no-nos in cyberspace is that you do not go into a social activity, a chat group or something like that, and start advertising or selling things. This etiquette rule is an attempt to separate one's social life, which should be pure enjoyment and relaxation, from the pressures of work.
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Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress.
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The dinner table is the center for the teaching and practicing not just of table manners but of conversation, consideration, tolerance, family feeling, and just about all the other accomplishments of polite society except the minuet.
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When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can't live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed.
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What you have when everyone wears the same playclothes for all occasions, is addressed by nickname, expected to participate in Show And Tell, and bullied out of any desire form privacy, is not democracy it is kindergarten.
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