Tell me about the worst dinner party you've ever been to

I want to know if Xiao's parents posh friend is Chris Patten?

Stealth Crisp sarnie and a load of alcohol and I'm happy

Not a dinner party, but a wedding reception. The father of the groom had sadly passed away the year before, and a photo of him was placed on the the top table, which I thought was a nice way to remember him on the day.
However, the photo had its own place setting, and was served not only all four courses of the wedding breakfast, but glasses of wine and champagne for the toast. Was very strange, and a bit sad really.

I think I resisted the urge to comment if I remember correctly as others were saying what I needed to say and I was in tears ( like a wuss) I am trying to remember her name at the time because she changes it all the time but I can tell when it is her as she has a particular way of writing.

Buzzard Did you out yourself by commenting on the thread?

Yes Imperial will search for thread, was last Christmas, not sure if it will still be there...

I have a few but the best ones are my parents:

• v formal dinner with my father's work colleagues, hostess was wife of the big boss and had the maid make the whole meal (this was not in the UK) but made a big deal about how she had actually made the dessert herself - think it was creme caramel or creme brûlée. Served everyone else, bites taken, everyone gulped a bit but trying to impress big boss they try and choke it down. Hostess tries her own, bursts into tears and disappears for the rest of the evening - she had mistaken salt for sugar.

• dinner hosted by parents, one guest intentionally lit his hair on fire (apparently he thought it would be funny). When doused with wine he snarled at my parents that his shirt was stained and they had ruined the joke

• dinner hosted by very posh friends of parents (husband is now a baronet but at the time was a waster sent out to HK having failed in London) - my father was given a bottle of champagne to open, managed to rocket the cork straight into forehead of the hostess followed by a jet of champagne that melted her pancake makeup off. She clapped her hands to her face and sprinted off to the loo, where she reapplied her face meticulously and appeared again without a hair out of place. That party apparently ended with some rather dodgy party games (passing champagne bottles between pantyhosed knees etc) but my parents have never elaborated, thank GOD.

And I have one of my own to contribute:

• dinner with a colleague of mine and her boyfriend who had moved in up the road from us - didn't know her very well and had never met him at all. We went round on a warm summer's evening with a bottle of fizz and a bottle of red, ravenous and ready for a good dinner. When we arrived the house was like an oven - my friend greeted us, seated us in the sauna-like living room with two glasses and our bottle of fizz, and then disappeared for the best part of the next hour. Raised voices were heard through the wall and in our embarrassment we drank our way through the entire bottle so when dinner was finally served we were quite drunk. First course was individual cheese soufflés which were delicious but you could have cut the atmosphere between them with a knife. Nothing offered to drink, not even water, and we were gasping with thirst. Then another 45 min at the table alone while hosts fought in the kitchen again, then we were presented with lamb chops (also delicious) while hosts had plain sausages Still nothing offered to drink - I asked for water, they both disappeared for ages (long enough to wash up a water glass) and finally came back together with a mug of warmish water. The boyfriend was an self-important bore and came out with every Pooterism under the sun.

You found your own dinner party on MN, Buzzardbird? Did you confront her? Can you link to the thread?

figrus, hadn't the hosts prepared anything? And had they asked everyone to bring something but some hadn't?

I had the worst dinner party ever when my guests started a full on screaming argument and left before dessert. I had been up since the crack of sparrow fart creating this masterpiece and was so pissed off I got on MN only to discover a thread by one of my guests blaming it all on her DH (which is certainly wasn't his fault)

Not a dinner party, but a family get together at my DGM's when I was about 13yo. We were waiting for a distant relative to arrive, she had been held up in traffic, after driving about 300 miles, so DGM decided to serve the meal (Roast Beef and all the trimmings) as she didn't want it to spoil. There were about 15 of us there.

Distant Rellie turned up just as we were about to eat, and my DGM realised that she hadn't done her a meal, and all the food was gone

So, while my DUncle delayed had a conversation at the front door with the Distant Rellie, a plate was passed around the table for donations. 1 person gave a spud, one a slice of meat, another a spoonful of veg, and so on, until Distant Rellie had a full plate.

All the while my mad DAunt was screeching "Come in Distant Rellie , come in" until my DGM got so cross with her that she stabbed her hand with a fork, sort of stage shouting whispering "Shut up you stupid cow, shut up until we've got a dinner for her"

Another friend had a BBQ for her dh 50th. She asked me to bring a bowl of potato salad, which I dutifully did. I presumed other guests, 60 of them, were bringing salads etc... Another friend brought a cheese cake. She called us for food, buffet style, in another room. There were 20 chicken wings and 10 spare ribs, my salad bowl and the one desert. The first 10 people through filled up their plates, presuming there was more food to come from the BBQ. The next 50 got nothing.

I'm now thinking of going on come dine with me so I can share in the bad dinner party stories

Except I'll end up being the one who drinks all the wine then tells them all that they are twats & has to crawl into the next day with the hangover from hell and apologise even though everything I'd said was right

Haha I just wrote the story of my life right there ^

I'm and in equal measure here!

My friends are all quite normal and we don't really do dinner parties - more casual suppers where everyone pitches in.

I need some mad friends!

I also want to meet the roll-throwing guest with Barbara and Harold! Priceless!

We had 'a girls night in' once in my friends house. She had a lasagne in the oven. She is allergic to perfume. Someone had liberally sprayed perfume before going out. Hostess started sneezing so she popped upstairs to take an antihistamine. Starter was yummu but hostess started swaying and mumbling nonsense. On checking her tablets, she realised that she had mistakenly taken a sleeping tablet instead of an antihistamine tablet. So we popped her into bed, took the lasagne out of the oven, helped ourselves to the pavola in the fridge, washed the dishes, got drunk and let ourselves leaving a 'thank you' note on her table.

Not my dinner party but friend and her husband had a party to celebrate the end of Ramadan. There were many very hungry guests invited. Except they are relaxed Muslims and they didn't know what time the end of the fast was and served up around 10pm. She said they were on the verge of being lynched.

I remember when my ex's friend and his boss and awfully posh wife called in on the way back from a business thing and we were obliged to take them out to dinner. The crustacean dish the lady ordered started to walk across the plate, at which point she calmly stabbed it with her fork, dismembered it and gobbled it up. I was expecting fresh seafood, but surely not that fresh! I just looked on aghast and felt rather ill. I did wonder whether this was a normal French thing (their nationality) but surely they have their food even slightly cooked?!

Another time, all ready to dish up, the latecomers arrived, plonked their baby in a bumbo right in the middle of the ready laid table and proceeded to make an hour long performance art of spoonfeeding it a three course pureed meal. While we all waited. And waited.Apart from my dc, who was creased and ravenous by this point so we gave her some of the (by now, going cold food) on a plate in the living room and sent her off to bed. They still didn't get the hint!

That's the weirdest excuse for a dinner party I've ever heard of! I used to have dinner regularly with 3 colleagues taking turns to go to each other's house. But they never spoke and I got fed up trying to drag conversation out of them each time, I was sick of the sound of my own voice. I snapped at them one night and said they needed to start bloody talking. It got a bit better but they were still hard work.

I was invited to a friends for dinner who had eaten and drunk large quantities of food and red wine at my house. I was starving so was my partner. I bought a good bottle of wine. She then bought in a small economy cheese and tomato pizza and carved it into four. The wine was not seen again.
Then again I invited some friends to dinner years and years when I was a student and a shit cook, the soup 'set' and even when my friend turned the pan upside down, nothing dripped. I think I might have used Bisto. She was a real foody too. They then went home to find out they had been robbed.

One of my friends had a dinner party around 25 years ago. Starters was a large shared bowl of Bombay mix. Eventually the food was served around 10.30 by which time we were all really pissed, and very hungry.

It was home made pizza, and was very nice, but my friend spent the whole evening in the kitchen and took 2 1/2 hours to make pizza for 6 people!

Not dinner parties, but xh who couldn't cook did the following meals;

Jacket potato and fried egg. He didn't realise that 2 potatoes took twice as long to cook in the microwave, so we ended up having a fried egg started, and then plain jackets 15 minutes later

Hot nan bread with tinned spaghetti on top, then topped with a veggie cheeseburger

Veg curry, which didn't have enough liquid in, so there were loads of still dry spices in it.

The only disaster I can remember dh(2) was when her drained the noodles to go with the stir fry, and nearly all the noodles accidentally fell out of the colander and into the sink

I once made a cake though and forgot to put the sugar in it

Not a dinner party but a wedding...

Some friends of my sister went round the room at their wedding with a box of crisps and handed everyone a bag!! That was the "food".

They are still really good friends and eat at each others houses regularly but my sis and bil know to have food first. This woman actually counts pieces of garlic bread and everyone gets one piece each (they are not badly off either - but that could be because the wife is so incredibly "frugal"!!)

Chipmonkey I hope your friend does the same to MIL. And why didn't her dh pull his mum up on her behaviour.

Some of these are hilarious.

I was once served super noodles at a dinner party.

Another time DH and I were invited to an old friend's for dinner. She had just gotten married and her new DH was an award winning chef. DH and I were rubbing our hands together in anticipation of a lovely dinner. We arrived with a bottle of champagne which she promptly put in the fridge "for another time". Her DH then served chicken with a Chicken Tonight sauce and boil in the bag rice followed by some sort of frozen gateau thing. I was never so disappointed by a dinner before .

Last one. A college friend invited me and another girl over for lunch in her new house. We bought a huge bunch of flowers and wine for the hostess. When we got there she told us that she hadn't had time to cook so we were going out to a local restaurant instead. She told us it was a bit expensive but very nice. The other girl was mortified as she didn't have any money with her so I had to lend her some money. When we got to the local town the hostess said we'd have to wait a few minutes before going to the restaurant because she just had to nip to the beautician to get her legs waxed! I really didn't enjoy my lunch.

Pmsl at sooty!

Sps, anyone else, youre welcome here. Do you like anything? Fray bentos?
:o

I love this thread. I'd love to have the hosts' version if events (not that I dont believe op, just cant imagine what they thought)