Etiquette question

[j4]

If someone invites you to a party, and the invitation doesn't say "bring partners" (but does imply that it's okay to bring friends), and your partners are not on the invite list in their own right, is it rude to email and ask whether it's okay to bring partners? Would it be rude (even ruder?) to just bring partners anyway (on the basis that they are my friends as well)? Or should one assume that if the partners in question were welcome in the first place, they would have been on the invite list?

Comments

[reddragdiva]

Ask and check - no reason to read minds when you could ask directly, and it will train others out of expecting their mind is readable or that their personal ideas on social conventions are universal.

Then decide based on the response whether you go at all.