Those little etiquette quandaries....

[Missy Vixen]

Mr. JulieRB just called. He's in a mood.

His cousin is getting married the first weekend of next month. This is the first we've heard. Her mother (his aunt,) just "hasn't had time" to send out the invitations, but she made sure to tell us where the registry is. It seems she never meant to invite the family members -- after all, they wanted to keep this "small". Did I mention the wedding is five hours away, in a vacation venue that the only available hotel rooms at this point start at $375 a night?

We are invited to a young friend's birthday party on Saturday. His parents have been inviting us to their kids' birthday parties for the past ten years. Every time we get an invite, we go through the same thing -- Mom insists we do not bring a gift. I don't know about you, but I don't like showing up empty-handed for a six-year-old's birthday party. They don't understand why we haven't brought them a gift. It makes us look poor, we feel badly that we're not bringing something wonderful to the birthday boy or girl, and the one time we complied with her insane request, we were the only ones stupid enough to do so.

We've tried talking to both parents about this to no avail. I have a feeling that this will finally be the year we tell them we can't be there if we're not allowed to bring a gift.

What would you do?
Julie