"If I don't want to attend an event, I just say, 'I appreciate the invitation, but I'll have to pass," says Diane Gottsman, a national etiquette expert and founder of the Protocol School of Texas.
If it's an opulent destination wedding that's out of your price range, you're fine sending your regrets along with a gift off the registry, Gottsman says.
"You simply don't have to take every invitation that's offered to you," she says.
That said, if you're constantly turning down plans to the point where you're not seeing certain people, you're not going to remain friends for long.
If they insist, you're within the boundaries of good etiquette to let them pay, Gottsman says, "because at that point, they're being sincerely emphatic."
Persons:
overspend, Diane Gottsman, Thomas Farley, Mister Manners, Gottsman, that's, Farley, they're
Organizations:
Protocol, of Texas