Traditions & etiquette

Customs and etiquette answer two different questions, and it helps to keep them apart. A custom is an offer: the bouquet toss, the garter, the horseshoe pressed into a bride's hand at the church door. Nobody has to, and a wedding without them is not an incomplete wedding. Etiquette is the opposite, an expectation: if you are invited, reply; if you accept, turn up; if you are a guest, do not wear white. Half of this section is therefore written for the couple and half for the people they invite.

The question asked most often is neither. It is a money question: how much do you give? There is no national figure, only a range that moves with how close you are to the couple, your age and the stage of life you are at — and the most reliable answer comes from your own circle, because a consistent amount among siblings, or among colleagues, is worth more than any table.

What surprises people is how much of what passes for “the tradition” is regional. A custom taken for granted in one county is unknown in the next, and the distance between a Scottish, an Irish and an English reception is wider than most guest lists assume. Invite people from several places and you are not planning against one norm but against several expectations — and the only way through is to say them out loud early.

For guests, the recurring uncertainties come down to three things: what to wear, when to reply, and what to do with photographs. All three settle quickly once you know what they are for — the clothes serve the occasion, the reply serves the couple's planning, the photographs serve their privacy. And everything here carries the same caveat: a custom that feels wrong for your wedding does not belong in it. The question is never what is usual, but what suits you.