That time of year is coming again. Spouse and I went to a wave of weddings in our 20s and 30s as our peer group paired off, but it's been at least 15 years since we were last invited to one.
Now we have two coming up in the next six months.
First up is the "youngest" son (in his 30s) of our neighbors (the good friend who died suddenly a couple weeks ago). We know the family pretty well from being invited to all their holiday gatherings over the last decade and from helping out with lots of home-improvement projects. The son's a good guy and we've been surfing together occasionally, but I think the main reason we're invited to the wedding is because we're friends of his parents.
He and his fiancée are both nurses. She just resigned from Army active duty and she's in the Reserves, both still at Tripler. They're having a church wedding followed by a Waikiki hotel reception. I'm blissfully ignorant of wedding expenses but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they are (or someone else is) spending $100 per person. We've just learned that the married couple is going to move back in with his (newly widowed) mother for a year or two while Mom decides her next step. We think cash is the best fit for this occasion. Is there an Emily Post or Miss Manners guideline on an appropriate cash gift?
Next up is my nephew the Army Ranger in April. He and his fiancée are both officers. He'll be separating from the Army shortly after the wedding and going back to school for his MBA on his GI Bill. (He enlisted in 1999 and was commissioned in 2007.) I think she has three-plus years left on her service obligation and has already announced that she's not stayin' a minute longer than she has to. We handed him a generous cash gift upon his graduation from West Point nearly five years ago, and we're probably going to do the same thing for them at the wedding. They've already set up housekeeping, too, so they probably don't need any more household goods to ship from one end of the country to the other.
I'm pretty sure that I can get away with aloha casual at the first wedding, but the second one will be in Austin in April. (Gee, how hot could that be?) It'll be the first time in literally a decade that I've worn a coat & tie. I think it'll also be the first time in my 19-year-old daughter's life that she's seen me wear a coat & tie...
Now we have two coming up in the next six months.
First up is the "youngest" son (in his 30s) of our neighbors (the good friend who died suddenly a couple weeks ago). We know the family pretty well from being invited to all their holiday gatherings over the last decade and from helping out with lots of home-improvement projects. The son's a good guy and we've been surfing together occasionally, but I think the main reason we're invited to the wedding is because we're friends of his parents.
He and his fiancée are both nurses. She just resigned from Army active duty and she's in the Reserves, both still at Tripler. They're having a church wedding followed by a Waikiki hotel reception. I'm blissfully ignorant of wedding expenses but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they are (or someone else is) spending $100 per person. We've just learned that the married couple is going to move back in with his (newly widowed) mother for a year or two while Mom decides her next step. We think cash is the best fit for this occasion. Is there an Emily Post or Miss Manners guideline on an appropriate cash gift?
Next up is my nephew the Army Ranger in April. He and his fiancée are both officers. He'll be separating from the Army shortly after the wedding and going back to school for his MBA on his GI Bill. (He enlisted in 1999 and was commissioned in 2007.) I think she has three-plus years left on her service obligation and has already announced that she's not stayin' a minute longer than she has to. We handed him a generous cash gift upon his graduation from West Point nearly five years ago, and we're probably going to do the same thing for them at the wedding. They've already set up housekeeping, too, so they probably don't need any more household goods to ship from one end of the country to the other.
I'm pretty sure that I can get away with aloha casual at the first wedding, but the second one will be in Austin in April. (Gee, how hot could that be?) It'll be the first time in literally a decade that I've worn a coat & tie. I think it'll also be the first time in my 19-year-old daughter's life that she's seen me wear a coat & tie...