Reviving this old topic because we received a combination announcement and invitation to a brunch for a cousin's (daughter of my husband's first cousin) college graduation.
2000 miles away.
I know that an invitation isn't a summons (we are not attending), and I know that announcements are proper and aren't gift grabs.
But I truly cannot imagine that they believe that there is even a remote possibility that we (and all the other relatives that they are presumably sending these to) would fly out for this. I like these cousins a lot, but we aren't especially close to them. Nor is it an especially historic occasion because no one in the family has yet graduated from college; they all do. In my experience (and both my husband and I have big extended families that love to get together for life cycle events), college graduations are attended by parents, siblings, perhaps grandparents and maybe a close aunt or uncle, but not the whole huge extended family.
Probably they just intend it like an announcement or a courtesy invitation. We've sometimes gotten high school graduation announcements, but I don't think I've ever seen a college graduation announcement.
As I said, I know that etiquette doesn't require us to send a gift when we receive an announcement (which is what this invitation amounts to). But I always feel like we have to anyway. Do you?
Do you feel like a note of congratulations, which I know is proper, nevertheless comes across like it's saying, "Did you send us this because you are hoping for a gift? Well, too bad, we figured it out, and it didn't work" -- ?
I am going to let my husband decide how he wants to handle this!