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Wedding Etiquette Forum
GlamQueenBride
member
Is this pretentious?
Most of my family is made up of doctors. I am not and neither is my fi nor our friends. For escort cards, would it be pretentious to label the relatives who are physicians as doctor when that's more than half our guest list? As in Dr. Jane Doe or should we just stick with Jane Doe?
Re: Is this pretentious?
What do most people do?
If you go formal, then use Dr. The fact there might be a "lot" is irrelevant. It's just the way your guests are categorized, that's just life.
If you are forgoing titles, then just use first, last names.
I would get rid of the titles. In my circle (which has a ton of Drs too) no one likes to use their titles. I didn't bother on my invites or seating charts. It may be a know your crowd.
Be sure to use Dr. for any PhDs if you are going to be using professional titles for physicians and other folks.
Some here will tell you that according to etiquette you don't have to do this, as in the past only physicians went by Dr. socially, but this is outdated and short sighted, imo. Your friends and family members who have a PhD worked damn hard for that title, and if you're using honorifics for everyone else, you should use theirs as well.
"Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends time and space."
If it were up to me, I would address the invitations using formal titles and then just put their names on the escort cards. But it's not up to me, it's up to you. And there is nothing wrong with using titles or having a lot of doctors as guests.
This has to be one of the most ignorant things I've read on this forum. If someone has a doctorate and titles are being used you should absolutely use their correct title which is "Doctor". Not all doctors are medical doctors.
Can you tell me why it's not pretentious and totes socially acceptable for physicians to use their title, then?
It's not.
There's no valid, logical reason. It's just that for some obscure reason, likely having to do with social hierarchy, it became accepted to refer to MDs socially as Dr.
And before we jump down the sabre rattling rabbit hole of "Well what about MBAs or MFAs or. . . ," we're talking about honorofic titles, which are typically associated with terminal degrees. There are no titles associated with MBAs or MFAs.
Well, I guess Boss could apply to a person with an MBA. I support the title of Boss on an escort card! :-P
"Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends time and space."
It was also a rule that single women never addressed a man without an introduction and never walked out in public without an escort, and now look how far we've come! We can even vote now!!!
"Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends time and space."
Mr. and Mrs. His FirstName His LastName
But quite a number of ladies on these boards shit a brick when they receive mail like that.
It's not their preference and we always advise people to address others as they wish to be addressed.
Most ppl I know that have PhDs wish to be addressed by their title in formal situations, and would be very offended and pissed at the host if the physicians were floating around with Dr on their escort cards and they were addressed as Mr or Mrs.
"Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends time and space."
Pointless hostile sarcasm aside, I was always taught that it is pretentious to point out academic titles socially, like announcing to the world how smart you are, similar to how lawyers never refer to themselves as "Esquire" and wouldn't expect that title in social correspondence. It's show-offy to point out. "Dr" for a medical doctor at least serves some purpose in letting us all know who might be useful in a crisis.
if the concern is not looking pretentious, call academic doctors "Dr" would seem to me an odd way to resolve it.
How people are addressed socially or casually varies from person to person, and there isn't no rule that only medical doctors go by doctor socially. Historically many PhD holders who work in universities to be Professor, but IME this also varies significantly based on norms in the field rather than some crazy rule you're making up.
What about dentists? Or Physical Therapists? They hold doctorates, but practice specialties that are not typically called medical doctors; would you not address formal correspondence using their titles?
We dont refer to medicial doctors socially socially as doctor because of the minute chance there is a medical emergency; we refer to them that way out of respect for the degree they have earned and the value we have put on their profession in society. It's about respect. Now if you don't want to respect PhD holders in the same way as medical doctors that's your choice, but really there is nothing supporting your conclusion we only refer to medical doctors socially as doctor because we need to know who can help in an emergency. If that was the case why don't we address nurses by their title? Or EMTs? That would have the same utility as doctor under your logic.
Personally i I would call a dentist Dr but not a pharmacist or physical therapist. And I feel strongly that no one working in a hospital should be calling themselves a doctor unless they are a medical doctor. It's misleading to patients who don't have the knowledge or capacity to figure out all the differences.
This is isn't a Supreme Court case. I don't have some magical perfectly logical explanation. I'm not interested in proving this is correct. It's what I've been taught and it is a rule. And I'd appreciate it if you stopped the personal attacking. It's unnecessary and wildly out of proportion to my comments.
I agree with you that if you introduce yourself socially at a dinner party as Dr, whether you have a PhD or an MD, that's pretentious. And on the rare occasion a medical emergency occurs at a dinner party, I'd much rather know who in the crowd is an EMT and not who is an ENT.
But we're talking about using professional and honorific titles by a host on escort cards for a formal reception, so I don't think it's any more pretentious to refer to the PhDs as Dr on their cards as it is to refer to the MDs.
If Uncle Jimmy the Otolaryngologist asked you to refer to him on his formal invitation to your wedding and escort card at your reception as Dr, would he be pretentious and an entitled special snowflake?
It's not about anyone asking you to refer to them in a certain way, it's about being respectful of titles if you as the host are choosing to use them. If you are going to use titles, then you should use titles equally- Dr. (PhD and MD), Reverend, The Honorable, etc.- for all guests or not at all. Double standards are garbage.
"Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends time and space."