u/RealisticFarmer2565

We had a large first birthday party for my daughter and we were very loose with the guest list, inviting a range of very close friends to recent parent friends we have made. It seems there has been a shift and people are not doing large first birthdays anymore. None of the parent friends we invited to our daughter’s party (who brought us gifts) have had a birthday party for their kid.

What is the gift giving etiquette here? If they gave me a gift for my daughter I assume I make sure to give one for their child even though there is not a party invite, right?

In the case of a wedding — people who I invited to my wedding but then didn’t invite me to theirs, I did not send a gift. Unsure if this was wrong?

We have in all instances still sent a gift for kids birthdays but I worry that maybe I have different definition of friend than others as you can see this is a theme in both wedding and birthday party invites. My husband and I love gift giving and community building but I also don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable by sending gifts if they’re trying to signal to me they don’t see us as that close of friends.

Hope this makes sense and look forward to the advice.

A few months ago I asked this thread if it was a good idea to bring my 18 month old with me on my bar trip with my three close friends from law school. Three close friends who were insistent that they wanted my daughter to join.

I went against the advice of others in this thread, took my daughter, and it was a disaster. We made it 4 full days and then went home after the first leg of the trip. I wasted $4300.

To make matters worse, on the way home on our $1500 last minute flight, we got stuck at our layover destination for two nights. Two nights alone in a foreign country.

The biggest thing for me, and the biggest reason I am so disappointed in myself, is that it just felt so dangerous in a way that is tough to even explain.

Wondering the streets of a foreign country alone as a late 20s female is not always safe in the best of circumstances. Much less with a dashing 18 month old. You can't use google maps to navigate as your daughter kicks and squirms. So, my recourse was to just sit in the AirBNB while the other friends were out at casual dinners, having drinks.

The only way for me to have fun was for the other girls to revolve their entire trip around my daughter, which obviously was not fair to them. The afternoon in the kids museum was a blast, but that cannot happen more than once and was not fun enough to make up for all the other stress.

There are a lot of lessons learned for me. I wanted to just share this out of the hope that maybe I help someone else avoid making such a bad decision and wasting so much precious money.

Listen to fellow law moms, folks.

My husband and I received a google form last summer to fill out our information to get a save the date from some friends from college who are getting married. We are 7 years out of college; they came to our wedding a few years ago, but otherwise not incredibly close.

This form is detailed, it asks for your mailing address, name, whether you want your save the date mailed or if digital is fine. It even asked about allergies and dietary restrictions.

Well a year goes by and we never see a save the date come through, so we reach out, assuming it got lost in the mail (we have had other mail lost).

And their reply -- "unfortunately we weren't able to secure an invite for you to our wedding due to the size of the bride's family and limited venue space". The language "secure an invite" is so transactional and rude in my opinion, on top of the whole system.

Am I wrong that this is horrible etiquette? If you are going to make an A list and a B list people, as Instagram has told everyone is okay these days, please at least do it with a bit more tact and grace. No?

As mentioned they are not super good friends, but I just thought the absurdity of poor etiquette was quite shocking. Happy to be put into my place though if this sub disagrees! Would appreciate people's thoughts.