Wearing my justice hat, I can see that incomplete gestures — “I don’t like gay people, except this one I happen to know really well, he’s okay” — are begging to be called out for the hypocrisies they are.
Under my etiquette hat, I recoil (imperceptibly to the naked eye) at the idea of forcing your guests either to pony up for your chosen political cause or stuff it. Are you going to engrave on the invitation: “Donate to this cause as a gift to us, or stay home”?
Fortunately, the sheer impracticality of your idea trumps all. You can’t make the donation a condition of attending your wedding, so don’t. You can’t (or at least shouldn’t) put any gift information in the invitation, so don’t.
What you can do is tell people who inquire about a registry that you’d love people to donate to X in lieu of a gift. If you’d like to expand your bogus-housewares collection, then you can open a small registry as well — which, again, you tell guests about when they ask.
***
June 2002: Battle over the garter toss
Dear Carolyn:
Wedding planned for fall. Planning generally amicable, except for one issue between me and fiance -- the garter toss. He wants to do it, I object strenuously. (He’s undressing me in public, for goodness’ sake.) He seems not to get that I REALLY don’t want to do this. I’m thinking, “Who is this person, and why would I want to be married to someone so insensitive?” Mom (usually source of perspective) seems to think this is “a little cold feet,” that “everyone worries that they can truly never know everything about someone” and that “compromise is required in marriage and this is a good place to start.” Sis (also usually a good head) says, “Oh, it’s just tradition, don’t be Bridezilla.” I find it disconcerting that my dearly beloved all seem to be on one side of the fence. Am I nuts?
-- Bridezillaville?
No, though your gene pool does raise some doubts.
You compromise on a garter toss . . . how, by hucking a shoe? Never mind. It’s all beside the point -- the garter, the “tradition,” “barf,” the family’s siding against you. Even his refusal to heed your objections, though that’s but a micron off to the side. Point is, your groom is strenuously in favor of something trivial at best, patronizing at worst and always in godawful taste. He’s throwing his weight behind goo. It’s like suing a network because you don’t like the plot of a soap, or devoting weeks of free time to teaching oneself how to smoke.
I don’t know how you respect a guy after that. I also don’t know if I’m kidding.
Let’s assume I am, and he’s fine. That means he either doesn’t get that you’re serious and you need to communicate better, or that you’re right to be asking who this guy really is. Values count. Either way, you need to talk -- and since this is about who you are, the last thing you need is to cave.
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June 2001: I don’t want dad to walk me down the aisle
I’m getting married next April. My parents have been divorced since I was 11. I’m not that close to my dad, and want to walk myself down the aisle. How do I tell him?
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