Book of Etiquette Volume I Part 23

CHAPTER V

INVITATIONS

SOME GENERAL RULES

No matter how informal, an invitation should always be acknowledged within a week of its receipt. It should be a definite acknowledgment--either an acceptance or refusal--and no doubt should be left as to whether the writer intends to be present or not. An invitation must always be answered in kind; that is, a formal invitation requires a formal reply, following closely the wording of the invitation. The informal invitation should be cordial enough to warrant a cordial and friendly reply; both invitation and acknowledgment should be free of all stilted phrasing.

Formal invitations for evening affairs should be addressed to husband and wife, omitting neither one nor the other. (The exception to this rule is the "stag" or its feminine equivalent.) If there is only one daughter in the family, she may be included in the invitation, but when there are two or more daughters to be invited, a separate invitation addressed to The Misses Brown is essential. Invitations sent to the masculine members of a family, other than the husband, are sent individually.

Invitations sent to a husband and wife are acknowledged in the names of both. If a daughter is included, her name is also added to the acknowledgment. The wife usually answers the invitation, and although it was sent in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Blank, she sends her acknowledgment to Mrs. Blank alone.

An invitation may never be acknowledged on any kind of a visiting card, although a visiting card may be used in an invitation. For very large, formal functions, invitations are always engraved. A young girl does not issue invitations to men in her own name, but in that of her mother or guardian. She should say in her invitations that her mother, Mrs.

Blank, desires her to extend the invitation to Mr. Brown, etc.

In replying to invitations, explicit details must be given. The day of week, date and hour should be quoted, copying from the invitation, so that any discrepancy made in the invitation will be noted and corrected by the hostess when she receives the acknowledgment. This does away with any possibility of such embarra.s.sing blunders as calling on the wrong day or at the wrong hour.

Only the most informal invitation should be given by telephone, by word of mouth or orally by a messenger, but every invitation should be either declined courteously or accepted with enthusiasm promptly.

INVITATION TO A FORMAL DANCE

The word "dancing" is usually placed in the lower left-hand corner of the invitation to denote the object of the evening's gathering; thus no specific mention that the entertainment is to be a ball is necessary.

Following are the most approved forms of invitations used for the very formal b.a.l.l.s:

_Mr. and Mrs. James Kilgore request the pleasure of your company on Thursday evening, January the tenth at nine o'clock Dancing Scarsdale_

or

_Mr. and Mrs. James Kilgore request the pleasure of ........................

company, at a costume dance to be given at their home on Thursday, January the twenty-sixth at eleven o' clock Costume de Rigueur 14 Main Street_

The words, "Please reply," may be added although they should be unnecessary since every person of good breeding will reply immediately to such an invitation whether he intends to accept or refuse.

ACCEPTING THE INVITATION

When the invitation to a dance bears a request for a reply, a prompt answer should be sent. If the invitation itself is in the third person, the reply should follow the same form. For a formal ball, an acceptance or regret should be mailed within forty-eight hours after receipt of the invitation. Here are the correct forms for the invitations above:

_Mr. and Mrs. John Harris accept with pleasure Mr. and Mrs. James Kilgore's kind invitation to be present for dancing on Thursday evening, January the tenth at nine o'clock 148 Grand Boulevard_

_Mr. and Mrs. John Harris regret exceedingly that they are unable to accept Mr. and Mrs. James Kilgore's kind invitation to a costume dance to be given at their home.

Brookline._

When the acknowledgment is a regret, it is not necessary to repeat the date and hour for the obvious reason that as long as one is not going, it makes no difference whether or not the details of time are correct.

FOR THE INFORMAL DANCE

When the dance is a small and less formal affair, a short note is used, though the more punctilious social usage frowns upon the employment of visiting cards for such purposes. Following is the correct visiting card for informal dance purposes:

_Mr. and Mrs. Harold Champ At Home Dancing at Ten 432 Maple Street April the Fifth_

The acknowledgment should be hand-written on white note paper, and couched in a cordial, informal manner.

THE DINNER DANCE

The dinner dance seems to be one of society's most favored functions.

For this affair it is necessary for the hostess to issue two sets of invitations; one set to the people she wishes to entertain at dinner, and one to those whom she wishes to invite for the dancing only. The dinner invitation would be the regular engraved dinner card with the words "Dancing at ten" written in the lower left-hand corner. The dance invitations would be her regular at-home cards with the words "Dancing at ten" written in the lower left-hand corner.

A very popular method of inviting people to informal dance parties--a method that has won favor among hostesses who are fond of inviting just a few young men and women in to dance and enjoy simple refreshment--is that of using the joint visiting card of herself and her husband and writing in the lower left-hand corner:

_Dancing at eleven April the fourth_

This may be written in in ink--and as an invitation the card may be used to take the place of the written invitation or the formal third-person note.

THE DEBUT DANCE

An ordinary dance invitation with the calling card of the _debutante_ included may be used for the occasion of introducing the _debut_ daughter to society. A more strictly formal form follows:

_Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wendover request the pleasure of introducing their daughter Emily Justine to .........................

on Tuesday, May the third at eight o'clock 10 Merril Parkway_

INVITATIONS FOR THE SUBSCRIPTION DANCE

Following is the correct invitation to use when the subscription dance is held in the drawing-room of a hotel. It should be engraved in script upon large white letter sheets:

_The pleasure of ...........................

company is requested at the Third Reunion at the Richelieu Hotel on Friday evening, April the tenth from nine until one o'clock.

Patronesses Mrs. Johnson Mrs. Meredith Mrs. Mooers Mrs. Thompson Mrs. Clure_

With the invitation above, "vouchers" are invariably included. These "vouchers" are for the purpose of enabling subscribers and patronesses to extend hospitalities to their friends, but also to bar the admittance of those people who were not invited. Here is the form usually used for the "voucher":

_Third Reunion Gentlemen's Voucher Admit ............................

on Friday evening, April the tenth Compliments of ..................._

To do away with the necessity of the "voucher" a card like the following is used:

_Third Reunion ..........................

The pleasure of your company is requested on Tuesday, the tenth of June at eight o'clock Community Club 18 Forest Avenue Please present this card at the door._