I'm no member of the etiquette police and am pretty laid back about most things involving our wedding. I just want to make sure everyone is treated properly and there aren't any faux pas that would hurt anyone's feelings. I'm having a really hard time though with getting some other important people involved in my wedding to understand this. Sorry if this gets a bit long.
For example, my fiance wants to send an invitation to his friend Matt and his wife, but wants to just mail it to his parents' house instead of asking Matt for his address. Matt and his wife do live close to Matt's parents and are there every couple of days (and were actually living there until recently), but I don't see why he won't just ask for their address. I can't make him understand how this is rude. My future mother in law is hosting a shower and we want to invite Matt's wife and he wants to either mail it to Matt's parents' house or he will just hand the invitation to Matt in person (they see each other about 3x/week), and ask him to pass it on to his wife. He wouldn't be bothered if, after our wedding, a friend sent a wedding invitation to us at his parents house, and he knows Matt won't mind, but I don't see why we can't just mail their invitation normally to their home, like we are for everyone else, but he is insistent that it's silly to bother to get their address and to waste postage on the shower invitation when he sees Matt so often. I brought up the question of where I would send a thank you note to them, and he said to just send it to Matt's parents' house too! Any ideas for how to convince him to just buck up and ask for their address? I know he wouldn't be pleased, but I'm about to just call Matt myself and ask for it.
I have similar dilemmas with some other people involved in our wedding too. My sister is hosting another shower (the guest lists don't overlap at all) and she wanted to have guests write their names and addresses on envelopes for thank you notes as they came in. I told her not to bother, as I would already have everyone's address and wouldn't mind writing it out myself. She was insistent that she wanted to use these to draw names for little door prizes and was so excited about the idea--she went to another shower where this was done and loved it. I again, told her not to worry about it and to use something else to draw names if she wanted to do that and tried to get her to drop it. She then said she already bought the thank yous and was definitely going to do it. At this point I said I thought it was perhaps a bit rude to ask guests to write their own addresses for notes where I am thanking them for a gift and to please not do this as I don't want anyone to think I'm too rude/lazy to address them myself. She then got really upset and acted like I was having a total bridezilla moment. Perhaps it's not my place to give my opinion about the shower as she's hosting it, but having guests address their own thank yous really rubbed me the wrong way. Could I have responded in a different manner? Or should I just butt out when it comes to the shower? I've tried to keep out of it and just let the hostesses plan, but they keep telling me their plans and asking my opinion.
That brings me to my future mother-in-law--she is very nice and I really love her, but I'm afraid she's unknowingly making some etiquette mistakes. She has gone up to some of her friends (who are on our guest list and we are planning on inviting) and asked them if they want to be invited to the shower, or if they want to be invited to the wedding. My fiance has said that this is totally her mistake and no one will think I'm asking her to ask these people if they "want to be invited" but I'm a bit worried. I guess there isn't much I can do about it...I just wouldn't know what to say if someone came up to me and said that. I'm not sure I would be offended, but I'd be a bit put off.
And, maybe this is really silly of me, but I'm trying to address invitations somewhat formally and not use nicknames. I check with my fiance to see if Matt's name is actually Matthew so I can address the invitation to Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Lastname, and he tells me it is Matthew, but just to send it to Mr. and Mrs. Matt Lastname. My future in laws keep saying the same thing for all of their friends who have nicknames and to just address it to their nickname, but it just seems so strange to me to address a nice invitation to Mr. Bill Soandso if his first name is actually William. Or am I being silly here?