Good Form in Engagement Etiquette

Those who invite engaged couples to their houses should make a point of sending them down to dinner together and of doing all in their power to show that they recognize and approve of the engagement.

An engaged girl should write to her personal friends to tell them the news, while her mother writes to older relatives and friends. Letters of congratulation in answer to these should be written as soon as possible.

Young girls do not write to their men friends to congratulate them on an engagement. They either congratulate them personally or not at all.

It is considered extremely bad form for engaged couples to be too demonstrative in public. They should try to be as natural and unaffected as possible, so as to avoid causing embarrassment to others.

The engagement ring should always be worn once it has been placed in position. It is useful as a friendly warning to any unwary and over-susceptible admirers.

Those who invite engaged couples to their houses should make a point of sending them down to dinner together and of doing all in their power to show that they recognize and approve of the engagement.

A girl may dance practically as often as she pleases with her fiancé, although, of course, she will do well not to forget entirely all her old friends in this respect.

It is the girl's privilege to ask any friends she likes to act as her bridesmaids, but it is an understood thing that some relative of the bridegroom shall be among the number.

Friends of a bridegroom who are unacquainted with the bride's family send their wedding presents to him, and he forwards them to the bride's mother, so that they may be on view with the other presents on the wedding day. – The Trinity Journal, 1914

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette for Families of Newly Engaged Couples

Meeting the family… “Etiquette requires that within 24 hours after receiving the news of the engagement, the groom’s relatives should call on the bride and her family, welcoming her in the family. Later they should give a dinner, tea or dance in her honor, if the engagement is announced publicly…”

Question: Should the young man's relatives call upon his fiancée upon receiving news of his engagement? Answer: Etiquette requires that within 24 hours after receiving the news of the engagement, the groom’s relatives should call on the bride and her family, welcoming her in the family. Later they should give a dinner, tea or dance in her honor, if the engagement is announced publicly. If there is no public announcement, they entertain her in a more quiet fashion. 

Question: Is public announcement made when the engagement is to be long? Answer: This again is largely a matter of personal taste, but the announcement is often made to protect the couple from conjecture and gossip. – From Imperial Valley Press, 1931

 🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

1914 Engagement Etiquette

Friends of a bridegroom who are unacquainted with the bride’s family send their wedding presents to him, and he forwards them to the bride’s mother, so that they may be on view with the other presents on the wedding day.

An engaged girl should write to her personal friends to tell them the news, while her mother writes to older relatives and friends.

Letters of congratulation in answer to these should be written as soon as possible. Young girls do not write to their men friends to congratulate them on an engagement. They either congratulate them personally or not at all.

It is considered extremely bad form for engaged couples to be too demonstrative in public. They should try to be as natural and unaffected as possible, so as to avoid causing embarrassment to others.

The engagement ring should always be worn once it has been placed in position. It is useful as a friendly warning to any unwary and over susceptible admirers.

Those who invite engaged couples to their houses should make a point of sending them down to dinner together and of doing all in their power to show that they recognize and approve of the engagement.

A girl may dance practically as often as she pleases with her fiance, although, of course, she will do well not to forget entirely all her old friends in this respect.

It is the girl’s privilege to ask any friends she likes to act as her bride’s maids, but it is an understood thing that some relative of the bridegroom shall be among the number.

Friends of a bridegroom who are unacquainted with the bride’s family send their wedding presents to him, and he forwards them to the bride’s mother, so that they may be on view with the other presents on the wedding day.— Trinity Journal, 1914

💍Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette and Engagement Season

The Christmas holidays, they say, full of gaiety and high spirits (I allude to those of nature’s providing are apt to lead to engagements; hasty manners, perhaps, but none the less agreeable.) Spring, of course, has always been considered a happy time for lovers’ boughs budding with green fire, the livelier iris of the dove, and all the rest of it July, August and early September are languid...

“Anne Gives Advice on Etiquette”

“Can you tell us,” writes a firm which shall be nameless, “if there are any special seasons of the year, in which people become engaged? We should appreciate what information you have on the subject.“ – "A. B. & C."


At first sight, this appeared as impossible an etiquette question to answer as any I ever received and I've received some difficult ones! It seemed to me that Pan, Cupid, Propinquity, Chance, any of the higher powers or the natural forces that govern humanity, might better be consulted. I thought of Tennyson’s pleasant line “In the Spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,” but nothing else occurred to me. However, I dined with a newly married nephew that evening, and I thought I would confide my problem to him. “I can tell you that,” he replied with the fine readiness of youth. “The Christmas holiday, the early spring, also the months of July, August and half of September.” 

I have talked to other young men since. The Christmas holidays, they say, full of gaiety and high spirits (I allude to those of nature’s providing are apt to lead to engagements; hasty manners, perhaps, but none the less agreeable.) Spring, of course, has always been considered a happy time for lovers’ boughs budding with green fire, the livelier iris of the dove, and all the rest of it July, August and early September are languid, white moon months, very wisely devoted to the selection of a companion in sentiment who may before one knows it, become a companion for life, or part of it, at any rate. This leaves autumn and later winter as the only periods to be devoted to book learning or business. Will any man give me more ideas on this subject? –By Anne Singleton, 1931 

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette, Engagement Traditions

We usually find that a young lady's spinster friends are partial to the custom; they seem to find particular enjoyment in presenting her with dainty tea-cups, either separately or in sets.

There is an old tradition regarding the giving of tea-cups as an engagement present. A lover, who was obliged to go away on an extended sea journey, gave to his betrothed a delicate china cup, asking her to drink tea from it every afternoon. He said, "If I am unfaithful, the cup will fill to overbrimming and the tea pouring over the sides will crack the thin china. Then you will know I have broken faith."

The custom has been brought down to us, and now we find that the giving of a tea-cup or a tea-set as an engagement present signifies faithfulness—and it may mean faithfulness to friendship or love as the case may be. We usually find that a young lady's spinster friends are partial to the custom; they seem to find particular enjoyment in presenting her with dainty tea-cups, either separately or in sets. — Lillian Eichler, 1921

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Moderator and Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Victorian and Edwardian Etiquette of Declaring or Declining Love

When the opportunity offers to settle the matter, there is little doubt in the mind of the lover and little hesitation on the part of the woman. 

Finding and Declaring Love 

In a great majority of cases in America, at least, where access to the young woman is gained through a thousand social channels, the real declaration of love comes spontaneously, and is accepted or rejected before there is opportunity even for the formal proposal. For by a thousand half-unconscious signs does that state of mind reveal itself. So it happens that when the opportunity offers to settle the matter, there is little doubt in the mind of the lover and little hesitation on the part of the woman.

Parents should carefully watch the young men who frequent their houses, in order to see that undesirable intimacies are not formed with their daughters, for friendships and intimacies soon lead to love. Many a girl, feeling convinced that she had loved unwisely, has entered upon the married state with heart and reason at variance, when she might have given up the acquaintance, in the beginning of it, very easily. 

The most perfect reserve in courtship, even in cases of the most ardent attachment, is indispensable to the confidence and trust of married life to come. All public display of devotion should be avoided, for it tends to lessen mutual respect, and it makes the actors ridiculous in the eyes or others. It is quite possible for a man to show every conceivable attention to the one to whom he is engaged, and yet to avoid committing the slightest offence against delicacy or good taste. 

It is quite possible for a man to show attention, and even assiduity up to a certain point, without becoming a lover; and it is equally possible for the girl to let it be seen that he is not disagreeable to her, without actually encouraging him. No man likes to be refused, and no man of tact will risk a refusal. 

Long engagements are usually entered into by people who are quite young, but who, for some reason, cannot marry. As the years go on their tastes may change, and yet each may feel that honor binds the one to the other. The woman chosen by a man when he is twenty-one is seldom the woman he would chose when he is forty. When people marry young they grow accustomed to each other, and, oddly enough, they grow to be alike; but during a long engagement their tastes are apt to change, and the result is apt to be anything but a happy one. Of course, there are exceptions, but, generalizing, the long engagement is to be feared.

This is true in that society where really well-bred and noble-minded women hold sway, for no woman of character permits the man to be long in doubt of her withdrawal of herself, when she sees he is attracted and yet knows that she cannot respond to his advances. The method of proposing is not a matter for a book on etiquette. It concerns, along with all major matters of morals, those deeper things of life, for which there is no instruction beyond the inculcation of high ideals.          

It is enough to say that an engagement has been broken mutually, even though no reason is obvious.

Declining Love 

A young girl’s own safety, as regards her present and future happiness, demands that she receive attentions from only the best of young men,—those of whom her reason would approve, if the acquaintance should lead to more than acquaintance. 

In many circles to-day it is enough to say that an engagement has been broken mutually, even though no reason is obvious. This should be so, for if too much comment attaches to the breaking of a marriage engagement, marriages will be entered into the almost certain outcome of which is the divorce court. 

A lady should never accept any but trivial gifts, such as flowers, a book, a piece of music, or a box of confectionery, from a gentleman who is not related to her. Even a marriage engagement does not make the acceptance of costly gifts wise.

 Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Moderator and Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia