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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
Matter
Provided
Handwriting
Writing
Immediately
Arrival
Thanks
Bride
Letters
Arrivals
Present
Brides
Whether
Presents
Doesn
Writes
Mother
Wedding
Bridegroom

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A young lady is a female child who has just done something dreadful.
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Visiting the sick is supposed to exhibit such great virtue that there are some people determined to do it whether the sick like it or not. ... All visitors everywhere are supposed to make plans to depart if they observe their hosts visibly wilting or in pain, but this is especially true at hospitals.
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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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The etiquette question that troubles so many fastidious people New Year's Day is: How am I ever going to face those people again?
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Nobody believes that the man who says, 'Look, lady, you wanted equality,' to explain why he won't give up his seat to a pregnant woman carrying three grocery bags, a briefcase, and a toddler is seized with the symbolism of idealism.
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Nowadays, you form your beliefs to fit your behavior, not the other way around.
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The most conventional statements are both true and welcome.
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In its natural state, the child tells the literal truth because it is too naive to think of anything else. Blurting out the complete truth is considered adorable in the young, right smack up to the moment that the child says, 'Mommy, is this the fat lady you can't stand?
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We have the reverse of the Puritan work ethic in America now. No one ever becomes a star by plugging along year after year. What is needed is flair, talent, 'an eye,' contacts, charisma, and, most of all, naturalness.
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When you consider how epidemic boredom is in our time, you have to concede that entertaining is a healing art.
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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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You do not have to do everything disagreeable that you have a right to do
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It's far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.
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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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If written directions alone would suffice, libraries wouldn't need to have the rest of the universities attached.
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The pejorative term political correctness was adapted to express disapproval of the enlargement of etiquette to cover all people, in spite of this being a principle to which all Americans claim to subscribe.
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Smart people duck when they hear the dread announcement 'I'm going to be perfectly honest with you.
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It is wrong to wear diamonds before luncheon, except on one’s marriage rings. Before, after, and during breakfast, luncheon and dinner, it is vulgar to wear a mixture of colored precious stones. It is always a comfort to know that so many things one can’t afford to do anyway are vulgar.
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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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A small wedding is not necessarily one to which very few people are invited. It is one to which the person you are addressing is not invited.
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