DEAR MISS MANNERS: When is it considered impolite to exclude spouses from work-sponsored events?

My husband is often invited to dinner with his entire office: They have a casual, social dinner with a co-worker visiting from an out-of-town branch. Spouses are not invited.

I’ve told him that I consider this rude on the part of his office administrator, but he says that it would be rude of them to make their colleague eat alone before going to the hotel, and that they don’t have the budget to feed everyone and their spouses.

To this I say: Invite only the higher-ups and their spouses to take the office guest to dinner, or ask for a small group of volunteers who can take him/her, rather than making it mandatory for everyone to spend an evening away from their spouse.

As another example, they held a retirement party for one of their co-workers, and spouses were not invited for the same reason (budget). I understand spouses not being invited, but then it should be scheduled as a retirement luncheon, not a dinner.

Bottom line for me is: If it’s after hours, unless you’re doing official business, employees shouldn’t be expected to leave their spouses at home in order to attend events with other employees. Am I wrong in thinking that his office isn’t behaving according to proper etiquette?

GENTLE READER: His office is mostly confused -- and with good reason, given the inability of society generally to separate the personal from the professional.

Miss Manners understands that bosses are too busy telling everyone they “put their people first” to have any time left to consider the comfort of their employees.

Asking employees to work after hours is sometimes necessary, but always an imposition. (And before someone protests that these dinners are not work, but fun: Are employees free to decline without consequence?)

Everything should therefore be done to minimize the inconvenience to employees. Inviting spouses is one possible solution, but causes its own problems: Most employees do not consider such invitations optional, and spouses may resent being asked to do work for their spouse’s employer. It also puts single workers in an awkward position (are they permitted a guest of their choosing?) and leaves employees with children searching -- and paying -- for child care. A better solution is the one you suggest: namely, being thoughtful about how many employees are invited, and how frequently.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My girlfriend was divorced from her husband for 14 years. When he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, they remarried for legal/tax reasons. He died six months after that. How long should we wait before living together?

GENTLE READER: The question you have asked is easier to answer than the one you have not, but perhaps should have.

You make clear that the remarriage was, for lack of a better word, impersonal. Those who are more fastidious than Miss Manners (an admittedly small group) may express concern at the propriety of a marriage “for legal/tax reasons.” If, however, you treat it as the financial transaction that it was -- and therefore neglect to make reference to it among friends and acquaintances -- you will find your second problem solved, as no one can question you moving in with your girlfriend 14 years after her divorce.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My 75-year-old husband insists that men do not have to wash their hands after a trip to the restroom if they only urinated. I think that every trip to the restroom should be followed by hand-washing. Can you tell us who is right?

GENTLE READER: In these days, when even a trip to the mailbox involves washing one’s hands, there can be little argument who is right. But even in pre-pandemic days, Miss Manners agrees that a gentleman washes his hands after a visit to the restroom, if only because a gentleman does not discuss the specifics of what took him there.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Following a pricey destination stag party, our friend married the wrong person in an extravagant destination wedding, complete with various live performances and expensive accommodations.

Upon returning to the U.S., the couple procrastinated filing the marriage license, admittedly because the relationship was in trouble. They continued living together for about a year and half, then separated for good.

Should they return the cash gifts given to them by their friends and family? Does the fact that these guests traveled far and spent a lot of money to attend the over-the-top affair before bestowing said gifts have any bearing?

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners assumes that, in saying your friend married the wrong person, you mean someone who was not his soul mate, and not a guest disoriented by the extravagant entertaining.

Wedding gifts are only returned when the wedding is canceled before, not after, it occurs. So with the above stipulations -- and notwithstanding the complication with the license -- your friend was married, and no return of gifts should be expected.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Assuming it is edible, is it proper to eat any garnish added to a plate of food?

GENTLE READER: If it is on a food platter and is edible, sure. Just promise Miss Manners that you are not reaching for the flowers in the centerpiece.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My mom and I hosted a birthday party for my dad at our home, and invited about a dozen people. We arranged to have food catered from a local restaurant, and we supplied most of the beverages, although many guests did bring a bottle of wine as a hostess gift or birthday gift.

After we had cake around 9:30, most of the guests announced that they had to leave due to the late hour. They left my mom and me with the cleanup of the serving dishes, dinner and dessert plates, cutlery, and wine and champagne glasses -- not to mention the leftovers, which were not insubstantial. None of them offered to help clean up.

Is this the norm and to be expected, or did our guests take advantage of our generosity?

GENTLE READER: It may not be the norm, which is the reason Miss Manners is called upon to explain that it is the rule. Proper guests respond to invitations promptly; arrive reasonably on time; behave sociably; leave before they, or their hosts, lose interest; and send handwritten thank-you letters for the hospitality. Proper hosts do everything else.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’ve probably watched one too many classic movies and read too many old books, because I’ve started to say “How do you do?” when I meet someone for the first time, or as a greeting in formal or business encounters. Someone told me it was outdated after I said it to them.

Is it strange to use it these days? Could Miss Manners kindly advise on this before I raise more eyebrows?

GENTLE READER: Raise them. “How do you do?” is the correct thing to say after an introduction. But please hang on for a short tutorial on the usefulness of conventional expressions.

“Pleased to meet you” sounds cordial, but it, too, can be questioned, because how do you know how pleasant it will turn out to be to meet any particular stranger? It is considered unctuous by fastidious Americans -- and by all of England, who attacked the Duchess of Cambridge’s mother for saying it upon first meeting the queen.

Miss Manners is afraid that in this literal-minded age, people mistake “How do you do?” for a question. It is not, and the proper answer is another “How do you do?”

An actual question would be “How are you?” but that, too, is conventional. Unless it is asked by one’s intimates or one’s doctor, it requires some sort of positive response: “Fine, thank you; how are you?”

Conventions mercifully save us from probing motives, so we can move on to real conversation.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Should women be allowed to wear a white wedding dress and splurge on their second wedding?

I ask this because a mutual friend has just done so, causing a debate between my mother and me. I believe that a woman has the right to her perfect wedding.

What if the first wedding was nothing that she’d hoped for, but this time around, she is going for everything she dreamed of? What if her first spouse was horrible to her, and this is a way for her to heal and move on? What in the manners books makes it OK to do less for your new spouse than your last?

GENTLE READER: “Allowed” by whom?

Miss Manners has no patience with the grudges of those who felt deprived of their dream wedding, whatever that might be. Marriage is supposed to be for grown-ups, who can understand practical limitations and handle disappointments.

But neither does she consider it is her business to tell a bride what to wear. The white wedding dress only became a bridal costume after Queen Victoria wore one; before that, brides simply wore their best dresses, whatever the style or color. And while the white dress and veil came to be associated with a young bride at a first wedding, they have now become almost universal.

People who snipe at white dresses being worn by women nastily called “experienced” brides are just being mean, if not vulgar. Miss Manners would never dream of mentioning what she thinks of those strapless white balloons brides insist on wearing -- or that the other common choice, the overtly sexy dress is, on a bride, redundant.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)