Charles Purdy, who writes the Social Grace column for the SF Weekly newspaper in San Francisco, has been answering questions on alternative-wedding etiquette for the past few years. His general rule is not to be scared.
Same-sex couples, he recently told the St Petersburg Times, in Florida, "may be breaking new ground in what they're doing, but they're very concerned with doing things in a traditional way".
They want advice on chiffon trains, veils and receiving lines. Many panic when faced with the dilemma of addressing an invitation to another same-sex couple. Best advice: just use the alphabet.
Purdy has heard it all, from everyday questions about mobile-phone manners during the ceremony (off, we know that) to bizarre anxieties about what present to bring when you have been invited to a hen night for a person who has had sex-change surgery (hmmm).
The most common guest gaffe, he concludes, is "when they say something that suggests, even as a joke, that they don't think of this as a real wedding. You'd be amazed. Even people who have lots of gay and lesbian friends sometimes say things like that".
In the case of gay unions, Purdy insists, "you should not be using anybody else's ceremony to make a political statement". The golden wedding rule applies. "Go only if you can celebrate wholeheartedly. If you can't, you should decline, and without any speechifying."
Elizabeth Howell of the Emily Post Institute, in Vermont, which publishes the revered Emily Post's Wedding Etiquette, also preaches good manners. "You should follow the same guidelines as you would for any other wedding," Howell recently commented. "You're there to help them celebrate. First you should take the good-guest pledge: RSVP right away, send a gift, be on your best behaviour."
The more acerbic advice mavens wish that people would simply use their common sense. "Stop worrying about which is the bride's side and which the bridegroom's," Judith Martin, a.k.a. Miss Manners, America's beloved taskmaster, repeatedly scolds. "Sit where an usher indicates or where you find a place." Martin also implores her readers to refer to newlyweds as husbands, wives or spouses, "but no new words, please, because the terminology of couplehood has been driving Miss Manners crazy for years".
One last thing. Tess Ayers, co-author of The Essential Guide To Lesbian And Gay Weddings, warns against writing rambling metaphors into your vows. Sentiments such as
"I was adrift on a sea of loneliness and you became my life preserver, my . . ." You get the picture.
