No Regrets
I will plan and
coordinate your
complete wedding
and special
occasions.
Nancy Stulberg
788.1362
AB
[IVE
Reasons To Use
Gorback Studio
5. Because Your Parents Did!
4. Royal "Trump" Treatment.
3. Unobtrusive Excellence.
2. We Have ALL The Sizes
and Perfect Colors.
#1. John Salley Did!
G oR bA c, l<
STUDIO OF PHOTOGRAPHY
626-3666
76 • JAN t JA KY/ FE IFIR I JA RY I 094 • STYLE
6225 Orchard
Lake Rd.
West Bloomfield
(N. of Maple in
Sugar Tree)
626-0004
Polite society
reluctantly accepts the
response card as
tradition gives way to
convenience.
BY BETH SMITH
liV
hen I was preparing to Mar-
ry Fred twenty-eight years
ago, the idea of enclosing a
pre-printed response card with
my invitation never even crossed my mind,
and certainly not my mother's. After all, I was
sending family and friends an invitation to wit-
ness one of life's most personal and traditional
ceremonies. Everyone simply knew to re-
spond on his or her own plain stationery; a
pm-printed form would have seemed cold and
impersonal.
Well, I feel the same way today. But the
modern world is passing me and the etiquette
experts by. The reply card business is boom-
ing and many people on today's guest lists are
downright perplexed if, when they open an in-
vitation, no response card falls out. Crane's
Blue Book of Stationery,long the bible of prop-
er correspondence etiquette, acknowledges
that more and more are being sent, but re-
mains firm that they are socially incorrect. The
most recent edition (1989) states that "wed-
ding invitations are properly responded to with
a handwritten note, written on a plain, fold-
ed letter sheet. Although a large majority of
wedding invitations are sold with reply cards,
they are still considered impersonal and im-
proper."
Unfortunately, if you follow what's "correct"
and forgo the card, you will be fighting the
tide." Even nationally-known manners arbiter
Letitia Baldridge, author of the New Manna's
for the 90's, has gone with the flow, albeit re-
luctantly. "I think reply cards are regrettably
acceptable," she says. "I still prefer a person-
al note on beautiful stationery, which is real-
ly the only correct way to reply to a wedding
invitation. But reply cards are a convenient
way to relieve the guests of the responsibility
of writing back a formal reply, and in today's
fast-track world, they have become almost
obligatory."
continued on page 78