DEAR MISS MANNERS: My daughter is a lesbian and she and her partner are now engaged and would like to plan a civil union ceremony. But in order to plan the reception, we need to know approximately how many guests will be attending, supplying a minimum but making sure that the maximum number of guests could be accommodated.

The problem is, most of the guests will need to drive about four hours to where the ceremony will be held. Short of calling all those that would be invited to see if they would even consider such an overnight trip, I'm not sure how to find this information. What we need to know is if they support the couple enough to go to a ceremony and would they be able to travel for a couple of days to attend. We would be covering at least a portion of the hotel costs for guests. However, there would be some expense involved.

Do you have any suggestions on how this information could be gathered without putting people in an awkward situation? We have about 18 months to plan.

GENTLE READER: Yes: Suffer like all other hosts by issuing invitations at the proper time, waiting anxiously for replies and extracting overdue answers through polite nagging. You may tell people the date now, which would enable those who want to attend to plan ahead, but realize that a binding commitment exists only when the actual invitation is accepted.

Probing people about whether they "support the couple" is a disastrous idea. You will embarrass people who just plain don't want to make the effort into thinking that they will condemned if they do not, and shake those who disapprove out of any polite silence they have mustered. There is no wedding that could survive a referendum from the prospective guests. If you could extract the thoughts of genuine well-wishers, you would find such notions floating around as, "With her looks, you would have thought she could do better" and "I suppose he is after the money" and "I give it six months."

This is why polite people do not say everything they think, and sensible people do not urge others to do so.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: At one of our favorite bistros, I encountered a puzzling situation. My meal included a pasta dish with a cream sauce and shrimp; I was surprised to find that the shrimp in my dish still had their tails attached.

How was I to consume the shrimp without eating the tails as well? I had at my disposal two dinner forks, a very large steak knife and a soup spoon. I was quite sure I needed some other utensil, but I wasn't sure what it would be, nor how I would use it once it arrived. What would have been my proper course of action?

GENTLE READER: There is nothing in that random assortment of flatware that will be of help. Neither is there anyone in the kitchen who will be, Miss Manners gathers. She recommends prodding restaurants out of this nasty habit by sending the dish back, pointing out that you are not planning to pick the shrimp up by the tails, as you would at a buffet table, and shake off the cream sauce.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: A friend gave me a ticket to a fundraising event for a charity for which he is a board member and whose work benefits him because he suffers from the illness they seek to eradicate. While it is a worthy organization, I do not normally support it and would not otherwise have gone.

Although he had not mentioned the need to pay him for the ticket or contribute to the charity, I wrote a modest check to the organization that evening. Acknowledging that it is irrelevant to my inquiry, it was a dreadful event from an entertainment and culinary standpoint, and I left feeling somewhat as if I had done him a favor by helping to fill his table.

A few months later, I sent an email to my friend and a number of others inviting them to purchase tickets to, and share a table with me at, a fundraiser for a political organization that advocates for the rights of members of the minority to which I and my friend above belong.

I received a scathing e-mail in return, questioning my manners because I didn't invite him and his spousal equivalent to be my guests. He invoked the earlier ticket he had given me as his justification for redressing me.

I was hurt and offended. I felt the events and organizations were quite different. His event was a charity event for which contributions were tax deductible and for which he had purchased a group of tickets because of his board membership. Mine was a political event for an organization for which I am a mere contributor. He gave me one ticket and apparently expected me to buy two for him. Upon reflection, though, those facts seem irrelevant also. Does accepting a ticket to a fundraising event generate an obligation to reciprocate -- either in general or based on the facts above?

GENTLE READER: Oh, please don't make Miss Manners side with someone who berates his friends. She hates having to admit that rude people have even a small point on their side.

In this case, it is very small. He is wrong that you owed him tickets to another fundraiser, but you did owe some form of reciprocation. Because he mistook this for return hospitality, which even failed attempts deserve, Miss Manners gathers that you hadn't offered any. Then he would be right that you should have invited the couple as your guests. Right, but rude.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am wondering why people never return a phone call when they say they will. I know it can be an inconvenient time for some to talk at that time, but when they say they will call back, the time frame is way beyond when the call was even made. Some of these people will tell me they are so busy. Is there a response that I can use to tell the person that it really bothered me that it took a week for them to return the call?

GENTLE READER: "I forget what I was calling you about."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband's unwed 21-year-old sister purposely got pregnant. She lives with her boyfriend, who is 21 and unemployed, and she is two years away from her nursing degree, which she will most likely not be able to finish. They have been together for less than a year, are not financially stable and he still has not gotten divorced from his wife.

Needless to say, the family is concerned about her, but she is overjoyed and believes that everything is going to work out for the best.

When I learned that she was trying to get pregnant, I sent her a lengthy e-mail detailing all of the issues she would face if she had a baby right now. (My husband and I unintentionally got pregnant at a young age, before we had finished college.) We told her how we had struggled, but this e-mail did not faze her decision to have a baby. She expects everyone to congratulate her and that she is going to love the attention that she believes a baby will bring.

The family believes that she got pregnant for that attention, as well as to cement her relationship with her boyfriend. She claims that they are now going to get married, but he has not filed for a divorce.

She has commented that her parents will treat her children better than my husband's and mine and my nephews because they are hers. (My in-laws have not been involved with any of their four grandchildren.) She and her boyfriend have also made negative comments about me to her parents because of the advice that I gave her. I have since realized that they believe that they know everything and I should probably just sit back and let them figure it out for themselves.

My question is this: My sister-in-law does not have any sisters or close friends that will throw her a baby shower. My other sister-in-law will be expected to do this, but I don't feel that I should be responsible for it, especially after her comments. She never offered to throw a baby shower for me.

GENTLE READER: OK, you don't have to throw her a shower. Relatives are not supposed to throw showers. Does that settle things? Is everybody in this family now going to live happily together?

Miss Manners is concerned about all three generations. She would have thought that your having been in a similar situation -- pregnant when young and frozen out by the grandparents --would make you take a less high-handed tone. Now the most she hopes for is that you put aside your squabbles to welcome the baby wholeheartedly into the family.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the polite way to congratulate a usually successful coach whose teams performed unusually poorly this year? It seems mean-spirited to congratulate such a coach on his fourth-place finish in the most important racing event of the year, but it seems more so not to congratulate him at all.

GENTLE READER: "It's amazing what you did with what you had." Miss Manners suggests saying this when the team is out of earshot.

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