Dear Etiquetteer: For a long time I've given a big party every year to celebrate something fun, but this year I've decided to do something different for myself that won't be a party. What's my obligation to tell people they won't be hearing from me as usual? It feels weird to tell people, but I also want to be thoughtful for folks to make other plans if they want to. What's the rule?
Dear Unhosting:
Your query brought to mind two things almost at once. The first was the voice of a Dear Friend, who delights repeating the old saw "When you assume, you make an ass of you and me" when Situations of This Sort arise. The other was Washington author and journalist Sally Quinn and her 1997 book The Party: A Guide to Adventurous Entertaining. Etiquetteer recalls La Quinn writing about her annual New Year's Eve party, but that also some years she and her husband Ben Bradlee would just go off to the country place instead and not host it. This led to some confusion from guests who, out of force of habit, just showed up at their dark town house and found nothing happening.
It's the responsibility of your guests not to assume there's a party if they haven't received an invitation. There is no social requirement to issue an un-invitation*, a term of Etiquetteer's invention that means "an announcement of an event that will not take place." That said, if you want to "control your own narrative" and ensure that people don't start creating Gossip, it makes sense to email your usual guest list to say that your plans have changed and that what they have come to expect will not, in fact, be on the calendar. Etiquetteer imagines that such an announcement would be helpful for those who travel.
*Etiquetteer was all set to call this an "unvitation," but that term has already been invented and defined by the cast of Seinfeld.
