Last night before bed Etiquetteer was idly dreaming about hosting a dinner party again — it’s been such a long time! And then what would happen if someone in the party brought an unexpected date, and there were no more chairs in the dining room. And that person was allergic to something on the menu. And someone else’s placecard was misspelled. And so on. Like Alice, Etiquetteer was down the rabbit hole in an instant. It made for troubled sleep*.
Having a contingency plan for every problem helps you keep calm in the moment. Back in office days, a group of us would brainstorm solutions in a Worst Case Scenario exercise, looking at plans for specific events, sharing our worst fears about what could go wrong, and together determining the best way forward. Often that involved phoning someone, but when you’re a Team of One in your own home, it’s up to you. So let’s consider how to sail through some Dinner Party Dilemmas with Perfect Propriety.
PROBLEM: Someone brings a date without telling you, you need to set an extra place, and there are no more chairs.
SOLUTION: 1) Find a stool or ottoman of appropriate size or 1a) phone/text a neighbor and ask to borrow a chair, then send the guest who brought the extra person to get it while you 2) set the extra place at the table corner next to your place. The Unexpected Guest sits in the place of the person who brought them, and your Errant Guest sits in the extra place.
PROBLEM: Someone suddenly confesses a Previously Unrevealed Allergy to something on the menu.
SOLUTION: Improvise a substitute that works. The traditional solution is scrambled eggs. (For dessert it’s probably whatever cookies you have hiding in the pantry.)
PROBLEM: There is no substitute.
SOLUTION: “Oh, I’m so sorry, I wish I had known.” Try not to sound too acid when you say that. Offer a double helping of the next course. (The most Perfectly Proper thing for the guest to do is to take it in stride, but they don’t always, now do they?)
PROBLEM: Someone points out that their name is misspelled on their placecard. (It doesn’t matter that it’s not Perfectly Proper to do this, people have done it.)
SOLUTION: Have a pen near your stash of placecards in a dining room drawer and make out a new one then and there. Say cheerfully “I’m so glad I know now!”
PROBLEM: You break a glass before company arrives that’s part of a set, and there are no more left.
SOLUTION: Put another glass from whatever you have in the house at your place. If anyone asks about it (not Perfectly Proper), best to be truthful. “I had a whoopsie-doo moment earlier today.”
PROBLEM: Someone spills a great deal of red wine on the table and possibly on themselves and others.
SOLUTION: Immediately say “Oh, that’s all right dear!” and direct them to the bathroom if their clothes are in danger. Start pouring salt on the tablecloth to absorb the stain. Do not throw a pinch of salt over your shoulder for luck; it’s just a superstition.
PROBLEM: You serve coffee after dinner, someone asks for tea, and you’re only prepared for coffee.
SOLUTION: There’s always that one tea drinker, isn’t there? And they don’t like coffee and they want their tea. You can either 1) boil a hasty pot of water to make a quick pot of tea or 2) apologize for not being a tea drinker and not actually having any tea in the house. (If this is not strictly true, let’s hope that tea drinker never ends up rummaging in your pantry.)
This could go on and on, but perhaps you want to test Etiquetteer with your own Dinner Party Dilemma? Reach out and let Etiquetteer know!
*Personal note: I used to keep an I Wake Up Screaming list on the bedside table so that if anything bothered me in the night about an upcoming event, I could write it down to handle in the morning and then return to sleep . . . and the next thing to bother me.