Getting Guests to Stock Your Wine Cellar and Who to Invite to a Wedding

We're buying a house and plan to have a large housewarming party, or maybe several. It's taken us four months to clear our old house of clutter and tchotchkes, so the last thing we want is more stuff as housewarming gifts. But I'd love if people brought us wine, as we're starting a wine cellar. Is it impolite to put on the invitations something like "Please, no gifts, but if you feel compelled, wine would be nice"?

N.M. /// Carrabassett Valley, Maine

You've uncorked a full-bodied problem there, N.M., with subtle overtones and no obvious finish. I get versions of your question a lot. People often want to celebrate while making it clear that their guests are not obligated to bring gifts. And guests, of course, blithely ignore that "no gifts" notation and bring something anyway. So then you, the host(ess), think, well, if they just can't help themselves, why should I get stuck with something I don't want?

And that's when you get yourself in trouble. Etiquette experts disagree on whether it's ever appropriate to put "no gifts" on an invitation. Some think it's perfectly fine, others believe it's presumptuous, since it implies you are magnanimously letting people off the hook from paying the tribute you secretly think you deserve. (I find "no gifts" to be mildly tacky and usually ineffective but hardly the worst etiquette sin one could commit. And it's almost always well intentioned, so what's to get worked up about?) But you really can't say "no gifts" and "vino, please!" at the same time. This sends a mixed message that leaves everyone unsure of what to do. And leaving people - friends, yet - in a situation where they feel uncomfortable and self-conscious regardless of what they do is an etiquette sin worth getting worked up about.

So pick a strategy and go with it. If you decide that you want your friends to furnish your wine cellar for you, then ask them straightforwardly to bring a bottle of whatever reasonably priced wine they like best. I don't approve of this kind of party-as-fund-raiser campaign, but at the very least, you'll be being upfront about it, and everyone will know what to do. Otherwise, you can probably cut down on the number of unwelcome gifts by the simple expedient of calling the gathering a "party" rather than a "housewarming."

When I reached the parking-attendant booth at the Woodland T station lot, the female employee, wearing a head scarf, was praying. I waited about three minutes (she never looked at me as I sat with my engine running) and finally said, "Excuse me, but I need to park." A very peculiar situation. What should I have done?
L.H. /// Holliston

Exactly what you did. Waiting for a few minutes was polite, but you did have the right to eventually request access to the parking lot. People who need to pray at particular times of the day should be given breaks by their employers so they can do so in privacy. The awkward situation that you were in was neither your fault nor the attendant's.

Assuming from your head-scarf comment that the woman was Muslim, I asked some Muslim friends about the situation, and they found the Mystery of the Pious Parking Attendant even odder than I did. Observant Muslims pray five times a day, but as my friends pointed out, the requirements for prayer, including ritual washing and prostration, can hardly be done in a parking booth. They suggested that, in fact, she might not have been praying, but rather talking on an ear bud cellphone that was covered by her scarf (they may have been having me on about that). At any rate, they agreed that you did nothing wrong.

I'm planning a wedding next June, and my fiance's mother wants to invite people whom she knows but my fiance and I do not. Is this an appropriate thing to do? J.S. /// Nashua

As a general rule, no. People are less than delighted to be invited to the weddings of those whom they do not know, and they may suspect with some reason that they are merely being shaken down for gifts. (I can imagine a situation in which your fiance's mother might have a lifelong friend who through some strange circumstance has never met her son, in which case an invitation would be fine - but such a scenario doesn't seem terribly likely.) Since invitations officially issue from the parents, however, it's her faux pas, not yours. You can strive to assert control of the guest list, taking as your principle the motto "Begin as you mean to continue" and refusing to let yourself be pushed into things you don't agree with. Or you can take to heart the just-as-wise adage "Pick your battles" and give way on this issue for the sake of family peace.

Choose your course on the basis of your relationship with your future mother-in-law and how strongly you feel about the situation (and exactly how many friends she's talking about and how much the whole thing will cost). If she's generally a nice, non-pushy lady who just wants to have a few of her friends around, let her. If, on the other hand, she on some level believes that this wedding - and for that matter, your fiance and future children - are more hers than yours, then you may want to draw that line in the sand now.

MY WORD!

According to some cognitive and evolutionary psychologists, the human brain is equipped to keep track of about 150 different people and their relationships. Think how many more people you know than that! Politicians, celebrities, and others whom you don't know personally count, too - as do fictional characters. So don't feel too bad when you forget someone's name.