You're invited to a friends for dinner at 7pm, what time do you ring their doorbell?

[suggestionsplease1]

Out of interest, feel free to post to the minute!

Let's say this is not a very, very close friend, so you don't have a pre-existing idea of their expectations / preferences for your arrival time.

After reading another thread on visitor etiquette on AIBU today I was wondering if mumsnetters can converge on a perfect time, or if there are widely differing ideas on this issue!

7-7.10. More than ten minutes to a dinner I would find rude. I mean the food is ready and everyone is hungry.

If I am invited at 7pm, I wouldn't expect the food to be served before 8 or 8:30! I have never once been to a diner party without at least 1 hour for drinks and nibbles.

Even in a restaurant with friends you'd order a drink first wouldn't you?

You can only turn up early if the are VERY good friends. And even then I'd probably send a message checking it was OK.

@AmIPeriOrAreYouJustAnnoying

My inlaws always arrive about an hour early 🤬😤😖

brilliant! In most houses, the host wouldn't even be back from work or picking up the kids

Even if I had half a day off, I'd be so tempted to get everything ready and pop for a drink with friends or neighbours and arrive back home 20 minutes before the time I asked them around.

Those of you arriving early- in what way do you think that is not incredibly rude and hugely inconvenient to your host?

7.05-7.10, no later.

We have some friends recently who arrived about ten minutes early to ours for a barbecue, and sent us a text from outside apologising and offering to go around the block a couple of times so we could do the inevitable last minute running around. Those are the sort of friends you need! (We let them in and sent them straight to the garden with a drink while we finished running around 😁)

6.59. Not so early as to be a pain (I hope) but definitely not late either.
I'd expect dinner at about 7.30, general chat/drinks/milling before then.

Even turning up early for job interviews is rude and inconvenient!

OBVIOUSLY you plan to be at reception 5 minutes early, to find the floor, the room and be ready for your interviewer on time, but people who turn up 20 or 30 minutes too early look unprofessional and disorganised.

Dinner FOR 7pm, then I'd turn up at 6.50pm and offer to help with drinks or carrying stuff to the table.

7.15

The amount a host can get done in those last 15 minutes is crucial. Or it gives them time to have a g&t in peace

7.05

Or you’re rude.

6.55 to 7.10 or if any later I would test to apologise/explain

This is why “7 for 7.30” is a much more helpful construction than people sometimes credit.

*text

7pm? Don’t understand why it would be any other time…

@LemonRoses but 6.45 instead of 7.15 is half an hour early. You said 10 minutes early. I agree half an hour is too early.

If I'm having guests I'd be ready about 15-30minutes beforehand so I could sit down and have a cup of tea/glass of wine and just do little bits, like get snacks out, get glasses out, put things in the oven. Exactly so I'm not fretting about my souffle when my guests arrive and can enjoy my evening.

Of course people come round yours to see you. I don't think people actually give a shit about your souffle, I would go round to chat and have fun. That's the whole point of going round someone's house

@Terrazzo it has nothing to do with stress levels. Well it might for some I guess.

It’s just the way it works in many circles, as many others have said. It’s incredibly rude to show up early (even 5 minutes), and also rude to turn up on time.

Obviously that depends on whose home you’re visiting, and it clearly also has other societal/cultural variables.

As pp have said, it’s just polite to make allowances that the host might be doing last minute prep, changing, or sitting for a quiet 5 min having a glass of something.

Evidently lots of people never got this memo, so that’s fine. They can keep doing what they’re doing. And I’ll keep doing what I do.

Who on earth sits down to dinner as soon as guests arrive?? Or specifies an exact time for dinner? You have to allow for bad traffic and cooking disasters and give wiggle room to both guests and hosts. Dinner with friends is meant to be fun, not regimented!

That's just weird.

@worrybutterfly

Dinner FOR 7pm, then I'd turn up at 6.50pm and offer to help with drinks or carrying stuff to the table.

If they wanted your help they'd ask you to come early, no?

Also - 7:05

Even if you pretend you've never heard of the normal etiquette for diner parties, and never noticed everyone else turns up in that 10-15mn polite window

I suppose if your host is retired you can assume that they have nothing to do all day but prepare their diner (bit of a rude assumption, but hey ho),

but with any other family, working, having kids even, surely it's obvious they need a chance to go home, organise things, sort kids out and that turning up early would be incredibly inconvenient for them?

Being polite and not turning up on the dot also means it's more relax for the host, the guests who don't have to time their arrival to the minute...

and again, who serves food the minute people walk through the front door!

Just use 7 for 7.30.
That way everyone knows, arrive any time between 7 and 7.30 and that you will be eating at 7.30 so do not be later than that.
Issue solved.

7.05-7.10.

My Mum taught me to be on time, but she actually did was arrive early everywhere. For other people she would hang around until she was on the dot, but for me I account on her being 30 minutes early. I actually think that's worse than being late.

If I invite people for 7pm I expect them to arrive at 7pm. so using that I would arrive on time at 7pm but not before.

If I was invited for 7ish ...........I would arrive just after, about 10 past.