Please send your etiquette-based questions to [email protected], subject line: “Ms. Proprietypants.” The archives can be found here.
I am a maid-of-honor who cannot afford to throw her best friend (the bride) a shower/bachelorette party. My friend is super chill and not really into all the trappings of a traditional wedding (I am the only bridesmaid), but she did express a desire for a karaoke bachelorette party (in town, no destination disasters.) I would love to host this for her.
However, I am very broke, and even more so after paying the associated costs of wedding finery, accommodations, car rental, etc. I assumed that an event like this would be pay-your-own way, but another friend of the bride’s got in touch with me to feel out plans for the party, and her note included the phrase, “whatever you think is best and works for your budget.” Now I am scared! Am I expected to cover the costs of karaoke for 10-15 people? Private room karaoke can really add up, and people have a habit of skipping out on the bill even during non-festive occasions.
The bride is also on a tight budget and it does not feel right to ask her for help. What should I do? Am I reading too much into a random and certainly well-intentioned email?
Oh, lovey! To be broke is not that fun, and it causes even more woe when it triggers social stress!!! Your bachelorette party, as conceptualized, sounds pretty great, as those things go! What will you sing?! I will be singing this; thanks for asking.
The larger answer to your question is that no, of course you don’t have to pay for the whole thing! Can you imagine what that would look like in the extreme? Poor, put-upon bridesmaids funding Neon-Lit Destination Disasters?! Who knows if that’s even what that email lady meant, but just put her out of your mind immediately and feel no shame in making this a collaborative financial effort. You will do the planning; everyone [except the bride] will do the paying*.
So yes, in principle you are absolved, but in practice what should you do? That is another question entirely, because you are chillingly correct that private room karaoke is a recipe for you getting stuck with a huge tab, no matter what Miss Proprietypants writes on the internet about manners and dollars. Here follows your bespoke game plan.
First, if you can, definitely make a rez at a place that has a bar located outside of the private rooms so that people have to get up, order, and pay for their own drinks. (Obviously what you don’t want is someone coming to the rooms to take orders and handing a massive bill to you, the last person left standing.) You may have to do a little research, but it will pay off in the end–LITERALLY!!! (Bah-dum ching! She’s here every month, folks.) Once you’ve found a suitable venue, book the room for a set number of hours. Find out how much this will cost (Call this number R.) Divide R by the number of invited guests (call this number N.) Call the result X. (This is math, like we were talking about last month! It is so important in our busy modern world today.)
Second, send an email to the guests. Leave the bride off this list. Explain that you’ve booked a private room at a karaoke bar from 9 pm – 1 am or whatever, and that the total cost of the room is $R. Explain that this will come to roughly $X per person, depending on how many people can make it. Give guests a few options for paying–they can send you money through Google Wallet or whatever (I don’t really get it, but seems like a Convenient New Thing?) ahead of time, or they can give you cash at the event. Clarify that $X does not include the cost of alcohol. Important: ask people to RSVP! Badger them politely until they do. Once you have your final numbers, send a follow-up email with the final cost.
Third: send an email to the bride, telling her when and where the party is. If you want, this can be a cute “formal” invitation sent to everyone (by which I mean you paste a relevant photo of the Muppets into the email, or whatever suits your personal style), or you can figure that you’ve spammed the guests as it is and just tell the bride when to show up.
Fourthly, have fun! Don’t drink too much, because it will make you feel unwell and possibly sad the next day! (Miss Proprietypants has been around the block once or twice, thankyouverymuch.)
Fifth: some asshat will skip out on paying you. Feel free to either resent her quietly for life and shit-talk her at every reasonable and unreasonable opportunity, or ask her discretely for the $$$ as she is leaving. Your choice. But be prepared for this inevitability.
If all this sounds kind of unfun, that’s because it’s a bachelorette party. I won’t go on yet another spiel about this, because I am loathe to be an even wetter blanket. I am full of hope that perhaps some of you will have a great time.
* If you were hosting it in your home I think it would be a little cheeeeeezy to ask people to pony up for cheez-its and downmarket rosé, and if you were hiring a singing telegram to materialize in a banana suit and croon something pervy, then it would be okay to ask people to split it but even nicer to pay for it yourself. (In the case of the hypothetical banana suit, splitting the cost amongst bridesmaids would be ideal, but obviously that’s neither here nor there in this scenario. I’m “just saying,” as people are always saying.)
I am both an editor of and friend to a notoriously tardy writer. She’s incredibly talented (and a real perfectionist), but she’s inexcusably late with her copy. When I’ve tried to put on my “serious hat” and discuss this with her, she breaks down in tears. She promises to turn things in early, and then misses her deadlines. Sometimes she turns in pages and pages of intensely labored-over notes, and because we’re so close to the wire, I’m forced to craft them into a narrative. She admits to being a terrible procrastinator and perfectionist, and I find myself frustrated when I catch her engaging in hours-long conversations with people in the office, and yet, I too am charmed by her and find myself caught in such conversations. I have no doubt that she feels guilty and that part of her tardiness has to do with personal anxieties and frustration toward our company, but still it’s unprofessional and puts a strain on everyone else’s time (read: I have spent entire weekends piecing together scraps.) In short: How can I effectively manage a friend?
Repeat after me: I will never write a story from her notes again. I will never write a story from her notes again. I will never write a story from her notes again. Please go find a mirror. Adopt a stern but warm countenance. Tell yourself, once more, with feeling, that you will never write a story from her notes again. Say it like you mean it. MEAN IT!!!
You are being paid to set boundaries at work, even if your social life bleeds into your professional life. There is no clause in your contract that says “don’t manage someone if you are budz with them.” And I know, this is easier said than done. I have some strategies, but you are just going to have to accept that this is literally your job and that you are going to have to do this. Once you see that there is no way around it, it may feel easier to do it with grace.
First off, do not engage in these epic conversations when she is on deadline. Tell her why you are not engaging. Practice this with a friend, therapist, lover, whatever. And just because you are being firm doesn’t mean you have to be a dick–be breezy! “You need to be writing your piece!” [Playfully!] “I refuse to talk to you until you’ve handed in that article” [Mirthfully but intentionally]. You can and should consider employing the same tactic when you see her talking to others. This may take extra practice, and extra breeziness, but that’s okay, because it’s your job. Grace-wise, it may help to explicitly take on a different self when you are being her editor rather than her friend.
You may wish to say, “I’m speaking as your editor now, rather than as your friend…” or something similar that calls attention to your role as the big, bad editor. That might make this more comfortable for both of you. And you also must must must explain to her that you, her editor, won’t be writing any stories from her notes again. If you like you can sit down and conduct a really profesh meeting, scheduled ahead of time, where you allow her to talk about her anxiety and then strategize with her about solutions for getting things in on time. But don’t empathize too much or be too chatty in this meeting–you are her editor here, not her friend or her shrink or her mom or some other kindly, concerned, brow-furrowed person. Communicate to her that she is more than capable of finishing her work, and that she needs to do so.
It does sound like maintaining the friendship may be important to you–everyone likes friends, duh–so to do that, make plans with her to hang out outside of work when she’s not nearing a deadline. This will reassure both of you that you are not just turning into a big mean jerk.
Some last ditch strategies: invent earlier deadlines. Sit with her while she does the work, even if it’s on a weekend. This is no fun, but at least you are not doing the writing yourself and you can certainly get other stuff done while she is typing away and chomping her nails and generally being her talented, neurotic self. Finally, if all else fails, exploit the friendship and tell her it isn’t fair to you when she takes advantage of your friendship by talking for hours and leaving you to write her damn piece all damn weekend. This is not ideal, but if nothing seems to be getting through to you, you may want to try it. Call attention to the fact that you are having to make this unprofessional statement because all prior efforts at getting through to her have failed.
Finally, remember that this, like most other professional problems, is a problem you can actually solve. I sense from the tone of your query that you don’t think you can solve it, that it feels like the relationship is set in stone, and the whole thing is a dismal, dreary done deal. In all likelihood, this is not actually the case. It is your job to fix it, and I am fairly certain that it is well within your capabilities.
Ok, I feel like I can sort-of comment on the first letter? I organised a surprise going-away party for my partner last weekend, and didn’t pay for it all. I booked a restaurant, paid for the food, and people paid for their own drinks. I was REALLY worried that our friends would think we were cheapskates, and that it was really rude to ask them to do that, BUT it actually went great! No-one minded paying for themselves at all AND they even gave my partner gifts (people were ridiculously generous!), which I didn’t expect.
So… it wasn’t a bachelorette party, but still a thing where I asked people to pay for themselves. And though I stressed majorly about it, it was fine. People are aware that events cost money, and are generally totally on-board with splitting the cost, especially for something celebratory. Just lay it out there like Ms Proprietypants suggests, and she’ll be right.
Edit: Just to clarify, “she’ll be right” is a Kiwi-ism that means “it will be ok”.
Yeah, it may be regional, but for most people I know, the expectation for a bachelorette party is that everyone but the bride pays for themselves, and either the MOH/Bridesmaids cover the bride’s expenses or they get sort of floated out across everyone. The friend-of-the-bride expecting the night out to be paid for by one person seems kind of nuts to me.
Cosigned – all the low-key, just-going-out-to-bars bachelorette parties I’ve been to were ‘everyone but the bride pays for herself’ deals. (But I have no idea if there’s some sort of standard rule about how it’s supposed to go.)
(This was supposed to be a reply to CaroWR)
The only time I’ve heard of it being done differently from that is when the groom’s family pays for everyone as a welcome to the family gesture. (Which is obviously great.) Otherwise, every woman for herself, because everyone I know in currently in hock for student loans, and we cannot expect others to go into further debt so we can have 7 Mai Tais and sing Tegan and Sara poorly.
Yay I am so glad it went well!! I remember your post stressing about it and it is good to hear that it all worked out.
It went SO well. Thanks for thinking of me!
I think this may be not only regional, but age-based. I live in the Bay Area. People tend to wait until their late twenties and their thirties to get hitched, if at all. Therefore weddings/pre-wedding events are often more chill and most everyone attending is a Reasonable Adult about finances. Of course, you’re also far more likely to have a fun time accommodating food allergies/preferences/cleanses but most everyone is on board with paying for themselves. If you’re dealing with early twenty-somethings and a more traditional-type wedding and wedding crowd, it might get harder.
LW2: Your friend needs to get a handle on her responsibilities if she wants to write professionally. Her distress is real, her experiences genuine, but it is not your responsibility to protect her from the consequences of missing her deadlines.
I appreciate that you want to keep her happy and make her feel loved and secure. But since it’s stressing you out so much, may I suggest having a runner-up piece you could run instead of hers? I don’t know if that’s possible, but have a piece in reserve so that if she misses her deadline you don’t have to nursemaid her through it, but instead can just have something else. The thing to say in response is ‘since you didn’t meet your deadline, we had to run *piece x* instead. We’ll run your piece next time if we get it before deadline’.
Yeah. As her friend as well as her editor, it’s crucial to help her get a hang of professional behavior. Because if you weren’t her friend, no matter how talented she is, you’d inevitably have to let her go after too many missed deadlines. She may not always work with you, and she’ll have a much harder time keeping her job anywhere else. Dependability > talent, in the end.
Yep, I worked for a guy who was always really really late on his reports, despite working way longer hours than anyone else because he just could not get things done. While he is actually quite good at some things, his career has been slowly imploding as one by one people refuse to work with him (it doesn’t help that he’s a bit of a dick), responsibilities get taken away, he loses clients, and he can’t leave because he’ll never get another job since his reputation has spread beyond our company and he’ll never get a reference from anyone at the company after 6 years there. Not to mention, I think his home life is suffering because he’s there so often late at night or over the weekend.
So LW2: don’t enable your friend’s unprofessional behaviour, the kindest thing to do is to help her learn to make those deadlines.
Yep. ‘My’ writers are often both alarmed and amazed that deadlines apply to them. I have on occasion had to respond with variations on the ‘that’s a you problem, not a me problem’ when faced with sob stories about hangovers from watching the football last night (really) and just plain old ‘have been slow this morning can we extend the deadline’.
I also moderate and admin a couple of facebook groups and forums, and that’s similar with the having to tell your friends off thing. I preface any moderatory posts with ‘with my admin hat on’ and pointedly don’t refer to it in my other interactions with people. It mostly works!
I also assume that LW2 is not the most senior person at that company. As such, her own superiors may not love that she’s using valuable editor-ing time to piece together stories out of these meticulous notes. This could be an on-high thing: “Hey, [my boss] is getting a little piqued that I’m spending so much time on things they think you should probably be doing more of. Can we talk about how to fix that?”
So, I’m going to talk about LW 2’s friend/employee, even though if I were in this situation, I’d be terrible at following my own advice.
Your writer friend hasn’t gotten her act together because so far, she has experienced no negative consequences for her (perhaps not malicious but nonetheless) inconsiderate habits. Is there a way you could let the natural course of things happen so that there ARE consequences for her?
Of course, I realize that as her editor it might just look as bad or worse for yourself if she fails on something, and I’m not trying to encourage you to fail with her or let her be fired or something. I just wonder if it might be time for “oh, I didn’t have your copy on deadline, so you don’t have any pieces in this issue.” Not meanly or snidely, just like, “hey, that’s what happens, can’t help it.”
Your writer friend hasn’t gotten her act together because so far, she has experienced no negative consequences for her (perhaps not malicious but nonetheless) inconsiderate habits
COSIGNED.
This is a problem, and right now, she’s relying on you to solve it through lavish applications of your skill and time. If it’s her problem to solve, she’ll either solve it or display her inability, and you can go on from there.
I won’t go into details, but I just today practiced this fine art of repositioning The Problem properly on the other person’s shoulders, and suddenly The Problem that had been lingering for weeeeeeeeeeeks is being taken care of immediately. Results aren’t always so gratifyingly immediate, but it’s a very useful skill to practice.
Is it the oven? Or did you do *two* magical repositionings this week?
LW 2: I work with one of my best friends. She is not my manager or supervisor, but she is senior to me and we have worked on projects together. One of the key things that she does is make the explicit distinction between when she is telling me something as my coworker and when she is telling me something as a friend. One thing that is specific to our relationship but that might also be helpful to other people: she is one of the very few people in my life who I let call me by a nickname. Generally speaking, if she is using my nickname, she is wearing her friend hat. (She may also be wearing her friend hat when she calls me by my full first or last name, so it isn’t a foolproof thing). If there is a way for you to code switch that makes it clear when you are speaking as a manager and when you are speaking as a friend (whether it’s what name you use, or your general register/tone/style of speech), that can help draw and enforce the boundary between the two relationships. The line can be fuzzy. It is okay for you to hug her as her friend after you’ve made her cry as her editor. But find ways to make it clear to both of you that there is a difference in those relationships.
LW2: writers need good editors and they WANT good editors. She needs you to be the force that channels her talent.
I have been both editor and writer, and I get so frustrated when editors don’t push back against my shenanigans. I, like most writers, am deadline-oriented. Deadline *dependent* even. I find I cannot write until I have to write, and with negotiable deadlines that moment often comes very late.
FWIW, I was mostly cured of this by having children and switching to freelancing from home because my reality now is if I don’t get something done during naptime, there will be no other time. I can’t think in a straight line while my kids are awake. They have become the deadline enforcers. They are ruthlessely self-involved.
I am also completely capable of bein friends with editors who are tough on me in a firm but gentle way. I’m aware that I jeapordize the friendship by shitting on them professionally. I broke out into a cold sweat when I saw that tumbler in the style of What Should We Call Me about editors dealing with misbehaving writers. Which is just to say you could actually HELP her anxiety by setting better boundaries for her.
Exactly. At the risk of sounding like a delinquent youth, I crave discipline and structure in my life. And if I were the type of person who could produce that structure from within, I probably wouldn’t have ended up in a writing profession.
Two concrete but counter-intuitive things that work:
1. More assignments to force better time management
2. Shorter turnaround to minimize procrastination
I am sort of on the other side of LW2’s situation. I think that problem is pretty common for writers, even if you’re a writer of boring institutional copy like I am. It’s easy to feel like the act of writing is a nebulous cloud of difficulty that can’t be broken down into steps. And when you’re in the middle of that it’s terrifying to feel like your superiors have left you to figure it out alone. Stop in for like two minutes each day to say “where are you at on this piece? Can you describe where it’s going? Have you talked to so-and-so yet?”
I got a new editor recently who just didn’t talk to me much and expected me to create my own timelines. After a couple of months of botched deadlines I realized I had to go meet with him for a few minutes every day or things would just get lost.
This is a really good point. Unstructured free time for writing would also not work well for me (as evidenced by the way I wrote my senior thesis in the four weeks ahead of graduation). This is probably true for lots of people, and it’s a pretty easy fix–doing a quick daily or weekly check-in.
LW1, I cannot overstate how great online money transfers are in this situation. I use Chase Quickpay constantly at group dinners, etc. I even used it to prepay for a bachelorette party like this one where they divided up cost beforehand. In terms of alcohol, might be tricky to find somewhere that will let your large group sit without having a server. If this is the case, I would repeatedly tell guests to either a) bring cash for the bill or b) use Google Wallet/Chase/Venmo to send you money for their drinks. Easy on servers, easy on you.
ALSO, I personally would eliminate food from the equation entirely, either by organizing a little potluck beforehand, or else going out well past dinner. Less to think about that way, and if someone skips out on the bill or forgets to pay it won’t make as much of an impact on you.
Square cash! It’s magical.
Exactly what I was going to suggest! Online money transfers ahead of time make things easier, and I can’t say how many times group events have been made less of a headache by asking everyone to bring cash for the bill. It also makes it easier on your server to just hand of a stack of money at the end of the night rather than fifteen credit cards and a dissertation on how the bill should be divided.
Potluck/dinner with the bride beforehand is also genius because you know she’ll have something in her stomach before any drink-related hijinks…
I have nothing substantive to say, as usual, but Miss Proprietypants’ bio is so great: “She lives politely by the sea.” Me, too! Not really, but don’t I wish.
LW #2, another issue might be that if your writer sees you primarily as a friend first, being edited by you might feel too intimate, and that might be causing her to freak out and procrastinate.
I don’t really have a good solution other than what’s given above: making it clear when you’re speaking as this person’s editor/coworker/etc. I generally won’t edit stuff for friends for this reason, or if I do, I warn them very clearly that they might not like what I have to say. The editor/author relationship can be an unexpectedly intimate one, and sometimes people aren’t prepared for that.
At first I thought “editing friends” meant “editing your social circle,” like, breaking off friendships that aren’t doing it for you anymore, and I was going to be like YEAH DO IT YOU’LL FEEL GREAT but as it turns out, the actual letter is also relevant! My ex-friend is also a very talented writer and also terrible at deadlines, and although she and I never had a professional relationship, I can tell you right now that if she and your friend/colleague have anything else in common, your friend has learned to expect to be able to leverage her personal relationship with you just as much as you would like to do with her. She is probably entirely aware that it’s something she’s only just barely getting away with, so don’t worry about her resenting you for calling her out; she might be upset at first, but she’ll probably consider it a fair cop. You’re in the right, and she knows it.
LW2: I actually think that you manage a friend by holding them to the standards to which you hold all your other staff. If she’s consistently missing deadlines, causing you to do extra work (or work that is supposed to fall to her), and openly procrastinating in the office, then please, talk to your HR/management, and then sit her down and say the following:
“We need to talk about your work habits and job performance. You’re an amazing writer, and very well-liked in this company, but you consistently turn in work late, incomplete, or other otherwise unusable. I’ve had feedback from your peers and my supervisors that this is having an impact on others in this company. With that in mind, we’re going to be watching you quite closely over the next few months, and you’re going to have to up your game. I’m happy to support you in figuring out how you’re going to meet your deadlines, and if you need meetings or a flexible work schedule or more consistent feedback, then we can make those arrangements. I’m telling you this as a friend and as a colleague, but this pattern needs to stop.”
And then – here’s the thing – hold her to that. Flag her late deadlines. Make her do the work. And if she can’t? There are so many other amazing, brilliant, talented writers out there.
This isn’t really an etiquette question; it’s more like, “How can I manage someone when I’m afraid of hurting them?”
This is excellent, excellent advice and could apply to so many line-crossing relationships even outside of editor/editee.
LW1, the way I’ve seen this done in the past is the maid of honor says “plan to throw in $X for the bride’s share of the evening, plus an extra $Y just in case.” Y can be as little as $5-10, depending on how many are attending. But if 6 people each throw in $10, that leaves a $60 buffer for those jerks who never throw in enough money. And if you have more cash than is necessary after settling the bill + tip, just distribute back among the guests.
Weighing in on LW2: I actually don’t recommend being breezy or playful about asking her to do or job. I’ve had to manage someone through a similar situation, and these hints don’t hold up (certainly not with HR, and generally not in terms of a communication style that will be understood by all people) if you end up needing to let her go.
When I was dealing with my sitch, my team member and I met so I could explicitly state what she needed to improve, and every week after that we had a status check to see where she had/hadn’t made improvements (and all this was documented). At the time, it honestly felt awful–she wanted to do a good job and it was hard for her to hear where she wasn’t measuring up. However, she knew what I needed from her and where she stood at any given point, and we worked together to find ways to help her improve and grow.
Long story short, it sucks to have to be so honest and direct, but you owe it to her–and your company–to spell things out clearly (and preferably have them on paper). That way, she has a clear path to growth, and also no one will be surprised if next steps need to be taken.
Your writer friend hasn't gotten her act together because so far, she has experienced no negative consequences for her (perhaps not malicious but nonetheless) inconsiderate habits
COSIGNED.
This is a problem, and right now, she's relying on you to solve it through lavish applications of your skill and time. If it's her problem to solve, she'll either solve it or display her inability, and you can go on from there.
I won't go into details, but I just today practiced this fine art of repositioning The Problem properly on the other person's shoulders, and suddenly The Problem that had been lingering for weeeeeeeeeeeks is being taken care of immediately. Results aren't always so gratifyingly immediate, but it's a very useful skill to practice.
LW1, I think maybe the email-lady meant “whatever place is not generally too expensive for your budget” in terms of costs of drinks/the room, not that you would pay for the whole thing? I mean, the maid-of-honor singlehandedly funding the bachelorette is certainly not a thing I’ve ever heard of. I think maybe she was trying to be considerate and it came out weird.
Oh good point, maybe she’s even aware that LW1 is a bit cash-strapped?
LW1, you 100% do not have to fund the whole party. That is crazy. Even if someone might expect it of you, you still don’t have to do it. (And I don’t believe that anyone expects you to do this, at least not in my reasonably extensive bachelorette experience.)
I am on an one-woman mission to change the way we are expected to approach our lives w/r/t money, and particularly our social lives. If you can’t afford it, you don’t have to do it . Of course there are exceptions (I dunno, your child needs surgery), but parties are NEVER the exception. Doing things you can’t afford like this just keeps you in debt and lines the pockets of credit card companies. Free yourself! And remember: YOU decide what you can’t afford. It is perfectly reasonable, say, to not be able to afford this but to be able to afford a new pair of shoes in the same time period. You are the master of your own budget.
Practically, lots of people here have good advice. A cheaper option also could be to rent a machine, and get everyone to chip in, and have everyone bring a bottle of booze and an extra for an “Iron Bartender/Karaoke Night”. Lots of Japanese influence! The bride takes home leftover booze to stock her liquor cabinet. Boom, shower and bachelorette complete, and everyone has spent less than they would on a night out.
If going out is in the cards, where I live “separate tabs” are absolutely a thing. Maybe not where you live, but I would call the venue in advance and ask. Everyone pays for their own drinks, nobody gets to skimp. Agree in advance that people will take turns buying the bride rounds on their tabs. And I wouldn’t BLINK at asking a person who hadn’t chipped in for the room or whatever other shared cost to pony up.
Take care of yourself and your budget! It’s ok to do that! And honestly, I would be very happy to be a part of a bachelorette where the organizer was budget-concious, having been forced in the past to shell out for 1/4 of a fancy hotel room in a city I did not want to visit, plus drinks etc.