Proper Etiquette Requires Response

What was on the fashionable Gilded Age or Victorian Era dinner sideboard? See the image above— No R.S.V.P. is used on the dinner card, for every one knows that a dinner is a solemn occasion, calling for the utmost punctiliousness in etiquette. The invitation sent out two weeks before the dinner, demands an immediate answer, on account of allowing the hostess to invite another guest in case you decline, and the engagement once made, the same rule holds good that maintains in following your partner's lead in trumps; only sudden death releases you. 
— photo source, Pinterest 

English Dinner Ideas 

The Latest Conventionalities Dictated by Fashion

If you would entertain according to the latest London idea, says the New York Commercial Advertiser, you will send out for a dinner an engraved card, bearing the formula: Mr. and Mrs.______ request the pleasure of company at dinner on at _____ o’clock, with the address in the lower left hand corner. No R.S.V.P. is used on the dinner card, for every one knows that a dinner is a solemn occasion, calling for the utmost punctiliousness in etiquette. 

The invitation sent out two weeks before the dinner, demands an immediate answer, on account of allowing the hostess to invite another guest in case you decline, and the engagement once made, the same rule holds good that maintains in following your partner's lead in trumps; only sudden death releases you. It will be noticed that the invitation reads Mr. and Mrs. request the pleasure, etc... In balls, concerts, everything but a dinner, the invitation goes out in the name of the hostess only. The form may be engraved on a card, a folded sheet, or for small dinners be written on the sheet by the hostess or her secretary. 

Unpunctuality is without excuse at a dinner, and in some London houses the guests go into the dining-room promptly at the hour, whether the party is complete or not, and, as a rule, at such houses there are no delinquents. In London, too, thanks to the universal use of cabs, a woman, even if she keep no carriage of her own; is not supposed to require any preparation for entering the reception-room, and a maid relieves her of her wrap in the hall without showing her to any room. 

Of course, the lady enters the room first, as the old custom of coming in arm in arm has quite gone out. In the first arrivale are strangers, they are introduced, and the hostess also introduces the gentleman to the lady he is to take into diuner, if they are strangers. Young ladies are not invited with their parents to formal dinners, and it is usually arranged to have an equal number of ladies and gentlemen among the guests, though often a man may be included who has no one to take in. 

Following the usual custom, the host, when dinner is announced, leads the way with the lady guest of honor, the hostess coming down last of all with the gentleman of most importance. If the dinner is large, the hostess may introduce the gentlemen to the ladies they are to take in a short time before the announcement. If the company is small, she says simply, “Mr. H., will you please take in Miss R. ?” and the name at the places seat the guests. Dinner à la Russe is served in London at fashionable houses with everything carved off the table by servants. Even the soup tureen is placed on the sideboard. In the matter of wines, sherry is served after soup, hock with the oysters, champagne is handed round with the first entrée, and may be continued through dinner, and placed with other wines before the host when dessert time arrives. 

Occasionally, a bowl of rose water is handed round, into which guests dip their fingers, wiping them on their own serviettes. When the dessert has been handed round,  the servants leave the room, and when it is finished the hostess must catch the eye of the lady sitting by the host, and making a slight inclination, rise and stand near the door, which one of the gentlemen holds open, until all her guests have passed through. Coffee is then served in the drawing-room to the gentlemen. No other refreshments are served, except the fashionable liqueurs, which are brought round directly after the coffee, though few ladies take them. English hospitality provides a tray of wine in the hall-room where the wraps are left, to be offered as a stirrup-cup when the guests depart at 10:30 or 11 o’clock. —Mercury News, 1893

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette and Wartime Rationing

It was suggested that future dinner invitations could be marked “B.Y.O.V.” or “Bring Your Own Vegetables” to help with the problems associated with wartime food rationing.

From World War II Era Food Rationing Came 

a New Possible Victory Canner “B.Y.O.V.” Etiquette for Dinner Hosts and Guests

WASHINGTON. UPI —Changes in eating habits, more home gardening and home canning are in the cards. The severity of canned goods rationing coming at this time of year, seems likely to spurt the “Victory Garden” program and plans for home canning of fruits and vegetables. Changes in diet will be more pronounced, perhaps, when meat rationing starts, but some differences in eating habits are indicated immediately. 

No more punching open a can of tomato or grapefruit juice for breakfast every day. . . . Less rushing home from a bridge game, ladies, to ready a meal by can-opener in the few minutes before the husband comes home from work. Too, the familiar phrase, “Junior, eat your spinach,” may give way to “Junior, eat your sauerkraut,” for canned kraut is the cheapest thing (in points) on the ration list—if you can find any. 

CAFÉS’ LOAD TO RISE 

It's taken for granted that food rationing will mean an increase in eating out. However, restaurants will be rationed, too, although the Office of Price Administration is leaving it up to them to figure out how to use the food supplies they get. Some Washington sources are wondering whether the number of restaurant meals will increase to the point where further official control may be instituted. 

In England, restaurant meals are controlled through a ceiling on prices, and restrictions on the number of dishes which may be served in a meal. When meat rationing comes along, the shift to such unrationed foods as spaghetti (with a little meat going a long way), potatoes, bread and cereals may cause the feminine contingent a few worries on the weight score. 

NEW ETIQUETTE

Then there’s the question of developing a new etiquette for dinner guests. Dinner invitations in the future might be marked “B.Y.O.V.” (Bring your own vegetables.) Offhand, it seems as though—unless there’s trading among neighbors — small families will get less variety of rationed goods than families which can consume a whole can at one sitting. For housewives say, there's apt to be less waste of such foods—no throwing away of leftovers. — by James Marlow and George Zielke, 1943

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia©️ Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Gilded Age Regrets and Rudeness

“You can only imagine what a shock and damper hilarity would receive at a dinner table arranged for 30 or more, with only four or five present.” 

Dinners and Dinner Etiquette

A certain keen observer of social fads and whims has been lamenting the winter fashion of not sending regrets to an invitation, until the day of the event or the day before. She relates an actual incident which occurred not long ago, when a hostess sent out 25 dinner invitations, and receiving no replies, ordered plates to be served for that number with the necessary preparations. Not until that very day did she receive replies, and, as our critic observed, “You can only imagine what a shock and damper hilarity would receive at a dinner table arranged for 30 or more, with only four or five present.” 

Another common breach of etiquette which one entertaining much deplores is the easy familiarity with which many try to squeeze in a friend or relative. It is an actual fact that one who had set the utmost limit to the number she could accommodate at an afternoon affair was completely nonplused to find that many of the replies proposed bringing a friend, with the apology, “I know you won't mind.” This would not matter at a large reception, but at many other social affairs, even one extra is a serious disadvantage.—London Standard, 1893

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Menu Card Etiquette

The 1883 patent for this combination napkin ring and menu card holder was sold on the premise and promise that guests would be able to read it without picking it up before each new course.

“Menus, printed, occasionally engraved, in script, or written in script-like handwriting in black ink, are always in French...”

Dinner 

Beluga Caviar 

Saumon Fume de Nova Scotia 

Pate de Foie Gras Naturel 

Consomme Printanier 

Celeri • Radis •  Olives 

Terrapin a la Union Club 

Filet de Boeuf larde roti 

Pommes Parisienne 

Asperges Hollandaise 

Salade du Jar din Petit Roquefort 

Gateau St. Honore • Petits Fours 

Moka Chocolats • Fruits Noix

Harvey's Bristol Dry Kentucky Bourbon 

Liebfraumilch Auslese 1945 

Old Pugh 1882 

Chateau Marquis de Terme 1923 

Old Jordan 1891 Cognac • Dom Perignon 1928 

April 26, 1949 

Menus, printed, occasionally engraved, in script, or written in script-like handwriting in black ink, are always in French, as we see them at large, formal, public functions in the best hotels. 

Sometimes a menu, with or without a heraldic device, is in its holder at each place, but one is always in front of the host and hostess and others are placed down the table with one for each three guests.

The commonest use of the coat of arms is on an ex libris, or bookplate, as a marking for silver, or on fine china, on wedding invitations and announcements, on place cards and menu cards for formal entertaining, and, of course, the device may be painted and framed for wall decoration. 

The full coat of arms shield with crest and motto or what is known as a “gentleman's heraldic bearings” is never properly used on personal belongings by a woman. Women in medieval days did not normally go forth in battle and therefore did not carry shields. 

It is proper form in England, to which we must look for precedent as we have nothing resembling heraldic authority in our own governmental setup, for a woman to use a crest on her stationery, on personal linens, etc., but never a coat of arms on a shield. The lozenge, however, is approved, and if a British woman is titled she uses the coronet of her rank above it. 

But a woman of an armigerous family, especially is she is unmarried or a widow, may use just the crest or the coat of arms itself but only if blazoned on a lozenge.  

A woman whose father has a coat of arms, but whose husband has not, shows better taste, actually, in saying good-by to it and its feminine modifications once it has been used on her wedding invitations and announcements and, if she wishes, on silver her family has given her. 

A painted coat may be displayed on bedroom or library walls, not too conspicuously, but the device may not be adopted either by her husband or children. No woman ever uses a heraldic motto, for these were invariably aggressively masculine and unsuited to feminine social use. — Amy Vanderbilt, 1952

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia