DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I own and operate a successful RV park in the Midwest. We have spent eight years keeping our park spotless and well maintained. We are friendly with our customers, and help them any way we can while they are staying with us. As a result, we have hundreds of perfect reviews on dozens of sites.

People constantly tell us what great reviews we have, and I never know how to respond. To say “thank you” feels wrong because I would be thanking them for something someone else wrote. Am I overthinking this, and “thank you” is the correct response? Or is there something else I could say?

GENTLE READER: It is not good to parse a compliment. You only seem to be challenging your admirers to flatter you even more.

In this case, they mean to congratulate you on inspiring, and presumably deserving, such good reviews. But not wanting to discourage modesty, Miss Manners suggests your saying, “We are thrilled that people seem to be happy here. We certainly try our best.”

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is putting your feet on a table acceptable?

GENTLE READER: Only if it is an operating table, but then, not if you are the surgeon.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Our daughter, Keira, was to be married last month. Due to COVID-19, we postponed the wedding until fall. We have sent save-the-date and save-the-new-date cards to 175 guests.

After the June postponement, our daughter and her fiance decided they didn’t want to wait to be married, so we held a small ceremony in our backyard with parents, siblings and our pastor -- 10 people in attendance. No one besides the 10 of us knows about the marriage.

It does not look like the fall wedding and reception we have envisioned will happen, either. Our church will currently only allow 10 people at a wedding, so it would be the same group as the small ceremony, with no attendants (who have already purchased dresses). It’s very important to Keira and her father to have their “walking down the aisle” moment, as well as to have a reception with friends and family present, preferably without social distancing.

The twist: Keira and her husband are both in their mid-30s and would like to start a family right away. So if the wedding is postponed again -- until, let’s say, next summer -- she could be a pregnant bride. Should we tell friends and family now that she’s married? And if so, how should we notify them? Is it tacky to have a wedding during pregnancy, or after having a baby?

GENTLE READER: Your daughter is married. No one, no matter how straight-laced, could possibly be upset about her having a baby. Nor about her having a delayed reception when social distancing is no longer required.

But Miss Manners is upset -- that you, and many others, believe that a wedding is a party that can be divorced from the act of getting married. And the well-wishers will be upset if they find that you have lied to them about the marriage. So yes -- tell them, whether formally, with an announcement, or informally.

(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 can’t make small talk. At a gathering, if I have nothing to say, I say nothing.

If someone asks me a question, I will certainly try to answer to the best of my ability, but that’s it. People will actually come up to me and ask why I don’t talk, and I simply tell them I have nothing to say.

Around women, it’s worse. I tend to be intimidated by women in general, which probably comes from being raised by a domineering mother. I once sat next to a woman in a class, and I was so intimidated by her mere presence, I didn’t say one word to her for the duration of the class (about seven hours). I’ve never been able to understand how most guys can just walk up to a woman and start talking. If I walked up to a woman, I would just be standing there looking like an idiot and not saying anything.

Another problem is that I don’t introduce myself to people. I have never liked my name, so I don’t offer it. If someone asks my name, I’ll certainly tell them, but they have to ask. But the main point is, around men or women, I’m just not a talker.

GENTLE READER: You put Miss Manners in mind of a father whose daughter’s college application asked whether she was a leader. His advice was to admit that she was not, but to state that she was a hardworking follower when the cause was just.

An admissions officer wrote on the young lady’s acceptance letter that the school was especially glad to have her, because the entire rest of the class -- indeed, all the applicants -- were leaders, and badly in need of a follower.

We are a society of talkers, badly in need of a listener.

You do have to learn to introduce yourself -- it is a simple formula, but the failure to do so is unfriendly -- and then to ask easy, non-intrusive questions. Don’t worry about making these clever; the most banal inquiries -- about the occasion, the weather, the location -- work best, because the other person is not challenged to come up with something original. Once you get others talking, you can be charming just by listening.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We have endeavored to keep up morale during quarantine by using our nicest china, silver and crystal more frequently. Sometimes we even dress for dinner.

However, one aspect of fine dining is giving us pause. Lacking a laundress (or even a dryer), we find the laundering and ironing of damask tablecloths onerous. Is it ever proper to use placemats or to dine on a bare wood table? Are wrinkly linens better than none?

GENTLE READER: Permission to do any of the above. Polite people overlook compromises required by necessity -- even in their own households.

(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: Is there a protocol that should be followed when new neighbors move in, either for the new residents or the old ones? Is one party responsible for going over and introducing themselves?

GENTLE READER: Typically the established residents are the ones to initiate contact, but Miss Manners thinks that whoever gets there first, also works.

The real point of the neighborly introduction is to provide reasonable assurance that neither party will be a future nuisance. A first impression that includes a warm welcome and a platter of baked goods is therefore infinitely preferable to a noisy party or lawnmower.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am not very close to my cousin, so I wasn’t surprised when I was not invited to any of her wedding festivities several years ago. It was an intimate destination wedding and announcements were not sent out. I mailed the couple a card with a note of congratulations and called my cousin, duties complete.

My aunt recently called out of the blue to tell me that she has held resentment toward me for neglecting to send the couple a wedding gift. She said that because I knew about the wedding, it was rude and penny-pinching of me not to send something with my card.

There have been countless weddings over the years that I have known about but did not receive an announcement/invitation for. Is it appropriate to only send a card? Or have I been stingy, and owe all of these people a note of apology?

GENTLE READER: Social media has made it possible to tally the many events to which one is not included, but you need not endure double insult by providing payment for the privilege of being snubbed. Miss Manners assures you that you owed this cousin nothing beyond your very best wishes, which you sent.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a lovely friend with a terrible habit: She talks with her mouth full. It makes dining with her unpleasant, and I feel increasingly resentful during our meals together. Not dining together is not an option, as she travels with our family at least twice a year.

I know it is impolite to correct another’s manners, and I believe she would be mortified if she realized she is doing this. Does Miss Manners have a suggestion as to something I can say that would not directly state she is making me sick at mealtime?

GENTLE READER: ”How rude of me to bombard you with conversation while you are trying to eat. I can certainly wait to ask you questions until you are done chewing.” And then Miss Manners suggests that you pause for as long as it takes to make your point.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Am I the only one bothered by the term “invites” when people really mean “invitations”? I hear the term and see it in print very frequently, but it does not appear correct to me.

GENTLE READER: It is not. “Invite” may be commonly used colloquially as a noun -- but not, you will notice, by Miss Manners.

(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.)