Cultural Musings

Husband and I have been invited to attend a nuptual ceremony in merry old Scotland this year. The invitation finally arrived in the mail on Friday. Huzzah! Husband told me about it when I walked in the door from work.

"But I couldn't find a reply card."

Ho ho ho. Silly manfolk, you must have missed it. So I pulled the card out of it's envelope, inspected it carefully for hidden preforations, shook it, re-examined the envelope for possible additional contents and turned back to him.

"You're right, there is no reply card"

I did notice that there was an instruction to send a reply to blah blah at blah blah address by such-an-such date. And (seriously) I thought they must have forgotten to include it. Somehow it was missed!

So I sent an email to the affianced parties, not to tactlessly point out that our invitation was missing an important component, but instead to delicately suggest that we send an email reply instead. The Chicago mail system- it is the worst in the US!

The cheerful reply came back: Not to worry, please do respond by mail anyways.

Hmmmmm. They cannot possibly mean for us to write our own response and pay our own postage can they? Where is the pre-addressed, stamped envelope? Where is the line to mark 1 or 2 guests and the box to check for meat or fish? Who are these people, barbarians? No, no, no the UK is a western nation after all. I will simply email another little amusing note, whimsically indicating that our response card was not included. To quote:


So just write yes on a postcard or something
> and send it to the
> address?
> We are unfamiliar with your euro-wedding invite
> ways...

And here is the response. verbatim.


I would suggest a letter containing the traditional
reply of:
"John, Stephanie and Yelena would be delighted to
accept your invitation to Duncan and Gillian's wedding
and are looking forward to seeing everyone on the day.
We should mention that we are all/ Stephanie is/ John
is/ Yelena is [delete as appropriate] vegetarian and
would appreciate it if this could be taken into
account. Many thanks, The Shaterians"

Scoff! well, hrm, ahem, so that's how it is then. I do not feel like a total idiot or anything.

So now I am afeared, what other cultural differences will we find at the actual event? We were anticipating a certain amount of kilt-wearing and jigging that is out of the norm for an American event. Will there be no Electric Slide? God, what else will these heathens expect us to do for ourselves?! Figure out what side of the aisle to sit on? Locate our own chairs at the reception? Some other task that I can't even possibly imagine at this time?

I'll let you know how it turns out.