EMT
Platinum Member
- Jan 13, 2010
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An email to a bride-to-be from her future mother-in-law has gone viral on the internet. Heidi Withers was sent a list of rules by Carolyn Bourne, the stepmother of her fiance Freddie Bourne, after she visited the family home in Devon in England. The 29-year-old bride to be was apparently shocked to be told she acted "like a brash celebrity" and that she had a "lack of manners". So, she forwarded the email to her friends. They sent it to others and the message was forwarded around the world. So, here is the email.
From: Carolyn Bourne
To: Heidi Withers
Subject: Your lack of manners
WHEN you are a guest in another's house, you do not declare what you will and will not eat - unless you are positively allergic to something.
YOU do not remark that you do not have enough food. You do not start before everyone else. You do not take additional helpings without being invited by your host.
WHEN a guest in another's house, you do not lie in bed until late morning in households that rise early - you fall in line with house norms.
YOU should never ever insult the family you are about to join at any time and the most definitely not in public. I gather you passed this off as a joke but the reaction in the pub was one of shock, not laughter.
YOU regularly draw attention to yourself. Perhaps you should ask yourself why. No-one gets married in a castle unless they own it. It is brash celebrity style behaviour.
I understand your parents are unable to contribute very much towards the cost of your wedding. (There is nothing wrong with that except that convention is such that one might presume they would have saved for their daughters' marriages.) If this is the case, it would be most ladylike and gracious to lower your sights and have a modest wedding as befits both your incomes.
One could be accused of thinking that Heidi Withers must be patting herself on the back of having caught a most eligible young man. I pity Freddie.
From: Carolyn Bourne
To: Heidi Withers
Subject: Your lack of manners
WHEN you are a guest in another's house, you do not declare what you will and will not eat - unless you are positively allergic to something.
YOU do not remark that you do not have enough food. You do not start before everyone else. You do not take additional helpings without being invited by your host.
WHEN a guest in another's house, you do not lie in bed until late morning in households that rise early - you fall in line with house norms.
YOU should never ever insult the family you are about to join at any time and the most definitely not in public. I gather you passed this off as a joke but the reaction in the pub was one of shock, not laughter.
YOU regularly draw attention to yourself. Perhaps you should ask yourself why. No-one gets married in a castle unless they own it. It is brash celebrity style behaviour.
I understand your parents are unable to contribute very much towards the cost of your wedding. (There is nothing wrong with that except that convention is such that one might presume they would have saved for their daughters' marriages.) If this is the case, it would be most ladylike and gracious to lower your sights and have a modest wedding as befits both your incomes.
One could be accused of thinking that Heidi Withers must be patting herself on the back of having caught a most eligible young man. I pity Freddie.