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| If you are going to be more than 10 minutes late to a dinner, or any meal for that matter, the polite thing to do is to call ahead and let your host or hostess know. It is the height of rudeness to arrive late without notifying someone when on is fully able to do so. Arriving more than 10 minutes early can also be a problem for hosts and hostesses. To be most polite, try to be on time… no earlier and no later. |
The Guest Who is Late for Dinner
If a guest at the last moment is unable to attend, the hostess or her secretary or the butler should call up some intimate friend and ask him to fill in. Instead of being offended at being invited at the last minute, one should be complimented at being considered on sufficiently intimate terms to be asked. And one should never refuse such a request if it is possible to accede.
Twenty minutes past the hour set for dinner is the longest a hostess need wait for delinquent guests. It is almost unpardonable for a guest to be late for a dinner party, but if one unavoidably is, the hostess must receive his apologies amiably, shaking hands as she sits at table, and not rising unless the guest is a woman.
Unless the guest asks that the service may begin at the point reached when he enters which the considerate guest will do he is served from the first as were the others. The considerate guest, however, will not be late for dinner if it is possible to be on time. To keep a dinner waiting is not only ruination to the dinner, but irritating to one’s hostess and inconsiderate of other guests.
If one can see that ten, fifteen or twenty minutes will elapse before he can get to his destination, he should telephone and ask that dinner be not kept waiting. Habitually to stroll in ten or fifteen minutes after the hour named is a pretty sure way to get one's name crossed off a dinner list.—The Gracious Hostess, by Della Thompson Lutes, 1923
🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia
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