Newport Manners & Etiquette: Entertaining Dilemmas

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Didi Lorillard, GoLocalWorcester Manners + Etiquette Expert

Handling and preventing entertaining dilemmas, copay baby showers, family weddings, and eating out with friends. All etiquette questions about how to be a wonderful host to Didi Lorillard this week at NewportManners.com.

Copay baby shower

I'm planning a baby shower for my coworker in a restaurant and the invitation has to include "pay for your own dinner." How do I put that politely in the invitation? I'm looking for examples of how to say it in a nice way but I can't find anything. Can you help me please? M.B., Manhattan

Under the RSVP information, add this line: Separate Dinner Checks

When you ask guests to pay for their own food and drinks, expect that they will spend less on the baby shower present. If all the guests are paying their own way, then they are essentially co-hosting the shower with you. Be sure to tell the waiter that there will be separate checks for everyone, but the guest of honor. To be considered a good host, you should probably pay for a couple of bottles of wine or a round of drinks for the table, as well as the new mother's dinner. When you talk to your coworkers, make it clear that you are 'organizing' the dinner, but not paying for all of it. Through word-of-mouth those coworkers will get the picture. ~Didi

Splitting the check

Recently I went out with another couple who are childhood friends and a guy we grew up with who is our buddy. It was a mini-reunion and they wanted lobster at an upscale restaurant. Even though I knew I couldn't afford to pay a quarter of the bill, I wanted to go. Paying the same as the others who drank a lot more was a buzz kill. I would have been happy hanging out and only ordering a glass of wine, but it is a really nice restaurant. Is there any way around this without looking like a cheapskate? Kate, Newport

Next time, have a twenty-dollar bill in your pocket for your glass of wine. Tell the others ahead of time to order without you. Arrive late and say you're only having a glass of wine. Then, when the bill arrives, put down your twenty and say, "This is for my glass of wine, plus tip." My point is this: roundoff the cost of what you order, plus tip, and have a five, a ten, and a twenty in your pocket ready to pay for only what you ordered and approximately a twenty percent tip. ~Didi

Reluctant wedding guests

My granddaughter is getting married next summer. She knows that my husband and I have many friends, and she wants us to invite some of them to the wedding. Her mother, my daughter, is divorced and has very few friends so I feel that we're supposed to compensate for that. But most of our friends are members of our congregation and my granddaughter hasn't participated in that and doesn't really know most of our friends. It feels odd and uncomfortable for me to invite them. I'd appreciate your advice and opinion. Name and location withheld

It is incredibly thoughtful of your granddaughter to encourage you to invite your friends to her wedding. Most of the time relatives complain that they want to invite friends, but cannot.

On the other hand, just as you would not attend the funeral of someone you never knew, you wouldn't attend the wedding of someone you don't know. Set your criteria for which of your friends you feel comfortable about inviting. In other words, the criteria would be that your guests would have met your granddaughter before the wedding. That should narrow your contribution to the list down a bit.

Have a frank and clear discussion with your granddaughter. Tell her it would be awkward for you to invite friends who did not know her: people don't go to weddings when they don't know either the bride or the groom. Say you would not want your friends to think you are inviting them as a push to get more wedding presents for your granddaughter.

If she is old enough to get married, she is old enough to understand that people are wise to the fact that when being asked to attend a wedding of someone they do not really know, it is a push for a present. ~Didi

Restaurant parties

Didi, you have helped me write a post-wedding dinner party invitation to honor our recently married daughter and her husband. It will be a formal dinner in a private room at an Italian restaurant for fifty people. What do I need to know to make sure I remember to do in preparation? Favors necessary or expected? Escort cards? Background music? Wedding pictures of the couple??? Anything else?? Elise, Alexandria, VA

Personally, I like table cards for each guest with their first and last name on the outside and the table number in the inside. Then have the tables numbered so guests can see the number. Once seated, the wait staff would take away the number card. At each place setting there would be a place card with the guest's first and last name. The more formal the invitation and the dinner, the more formal the seating. Any good stationery store will have table cards and place cards. I am not a fan of the table chart. When the numbers are displayed well on the tables, you would not need a seating chart.

At the entrance to the room or in the cocktail area, you would have a table set up with the place cards alphabetically arranged. When greeting a guest remember to ask them to pick up their table number before going into dinner in order to find their place card. Guests like knowing where they are going to sit and a good host makes sure guests feel welcomed.

Most guests will leave their party favor behind, unless the favor is a very small box of handcrafted chocolate that can be sampled at the table with coffee or secured in a jacket pocket or small evening bag to be eaten later.

If you are not having dancing, you will not need a band. Perhaps, the wedding couple would enjoy a trio or quartet. If the room has a piano, the pianist could play during the cocktail hour and then again when dessert and champagne are served and the toasts begin.

When making up your agreement with the restaurant manager, you want to be sure that there are, for instance, filled water glasses, butter plates and knives, salt and pepper, cloth napkins and tablecloths, and some kind of lighting on the table (either votives, laterns, or small LED operated table lamps). You would order the flowers yourself or ask the manager for the name of their florist. The flowers should represent the time of year and not be too tall or too wide, so you would give the florist the number of tabletops and whether they are for eight or ten. An added touch would be to have a printed menu card on the tables at each place setting with the wedding couple's name and date of marriage preceding the list of courses and wine pairings.

Ahead of time you would do a tasting of the menu and the wine pairing giving guests a choice of a red or white wine during dinner and a glass or two of champagne with dessert. The menu should be worked out in advance, but be sure to have an alternative choice, so if a guest asks for a vegetarian plate, it will be available. The plate of food should look colorful and the food should not only taste good, but you want it wet and juicy looking. Be sure to specify that you want bread baskets and how often they should be passed or replaced. You also want to know how many waiters there will be per table, because you don't want some guests carving into their filet mignon when others are still on the soup course. For instance during cocktails you should have one server passing hors d'oeuvres for every twenty-five guests. For a formal multi-course seated dinner, you should be assured that there will be at least one but preferably two waiters for every ten to twelve guests.

As to the toasts, keep them brief and simple. No written out speeches. The smaller the gathering the shorter and fewer the toasts should be. As for displaying the wedding photos, perhaps, it might be an elegant touch for the wedding couple to send a 3x5 wedding photo along with their thank-you note to each guest in appreciation for their wedding present. ~Didi

Do you have a Question for Didi? Visit her at NewportManners.com, where Didi researches etiquette and all matters of manners for her book, "Newport Etiquette." If your Question is used, we can withhold your name and/or address. Do explore Didi Lorillard's earlier columns listed below.

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