Dear Queenie,
I received a Save the Date for an event and, as instructed, I saved the date. Then... nothing. No invitation followed. No update. No message saying plans had changed. As the date approached, I assumed the event had been postponed or cancelled. A few days later, I opened Facebook. There were the photographs. The event had happened. People were dressed up, smiling and apparently having a wonderful time on the exact date I had dutifully saved. I won't pretend it didn't sting. The event celebrated women from a particular ethnic and cultural background. I am not from that background, but I didn't think that excluded me, especially since somebody had originally thought I belonged in the room enough to send me a Save the Date. And while that particular heritage is not mine familial or ethnically, its history intersects with the wider Caribbean story. As a Caribbean woman, I didn't feel completely disconnected from what was being celebrated. Now my mind is doing what minds do when nobody provides an explanation. Was the guest list reduced? Did someone decide I didn't really fit the profile? Was I included initially by mistake? And, embarrassingly, I've even found myself wondering whether I simply didn't look enough like the women the event eventually centered. Different hair. Different features. Different background. I don't want to turn an invitation mishap into something deeper if it wasn't. But being invited and then silently uninvited feels worse than never being invited at all. Queenie, do I ask what happened, or accept that my Save the Date apparently came with an expiration date? —Saved the Date for Nothing
Dear Saved the Date for Nothing,
There is a particularly modern form of social humiliation that goes like this: Save the Date. You save it. They forget you. Facebook provides the evidence. Ouch. First, let's establish something. A Save the Date is not generally the final invitation. Plans change. Venues shrink. Budgets change. Guest lists get revised. Events evolve. So there are perfectly innocent explanations for why someone who received an early notice might not ultimately receive an invitation. But good manners require one additional step: Tell them. Once you've specifically asked someone to reserve a date, you have created a reasonable expectation. If that expectation changes, a short message would have prevented everything you're now wondering about. What I would caution you against, however, is answering the unanswered question yourself. You don't know that your hair had anything to do with it. You don't know that your ethnicity did either. Those possibilities have entered the vacuum because nobody explained what happened. And rejection is fertile ground for imagination. Your feelings about the event itself are also worth separating from the invitation issue. You can feel connected to a history as a Caribbean woman without claiming an ethnic experience that isn't yours. Caribbean histories overlap. Migration, colonialism, slavery, indentureship, race, class and women's experiences have intersected across these islands and territories for centuries. But an organization may still legitimately create a space specifically for women of a particular heritage. If that was ultimately the intention, fair enough. The puzzling part remains: Why send you the Save the Date? Would I ask? If you know the organizer reasonably well, yes, but lightly. Something like: "I saw the event went ahead and it looked lovely. I had received the Save the Date but never the invitation, so I had assumed it was postponed. I was just wondering whether I missed something." Then stop. Don't mention your hair. Don't accuse anyone of excluding you. Don't supply possible explanations for them. Give them the opportunity to explain. Their answer, or their discomfort in giving one, may tell you everything you need to know. And next time someone tells you to Save the Date? Save it. Just perhaps don't buy the outfit until the actual invitation arrives. —Queenie
