What do I take to a dinner party?

[alibabo]

I'm attending a ladies' dinner party. Four guests. We're all in our forties. Sounds as though the host is cooking and sorting all food and drink. I'll take a nice bottle of red, but what else?! Flowers seems a bit thoughtless. I bought the host a scented candle a while back for her birthday. WWYD?

Flowers or chocolates. But wine is fine if it’s a gift rather than what you’re planning to drink.

I would take/enjoy receiving wine plus one of

Flowers
Chocolates
Candle
Box of nice biscuits

Nice flowers e.g Marks Spencer’s, not a bunch from the garage, lots of people who come to my house buy me Lilly’s but that because everyone knows I love them, or good quality chocolates. Or a nice bottle of Prosecco.

Wine and chocolates are fine, as are flowers, or a nice bottle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar,. Or ask the host if you can bring cheese for the evening?

Any small home related gift, things I’ve given/received:

Plant in a nice pot
Candle
Coffee Table Book
Reed diffuser
Posh hand soaps and/or moisturiser
Embroidered tea towel

Chocolates and wine also perfectly acceptable although I’d say posh friends steer away from those.

I was taught to check before bringing wine because the host should open the wine brought (unless the guest made it clear otherwise) and it might not go with their own carefully chosen wine!

I ask. Or bring chocolates as I take the view they can come out with coffee pretty much regardless.

I'm so glad someone else was taught this too! I always thought I was the only one. These days it's assumed you take wine and everyone drinks anything. I was taught the host would have chosen wine to go with the food and if you took wine you would embarrass them into opening it, so if you really wanted to take a bottle you should give it to them and declare it a gift for them to enjoy at a later date.
Anyway, OP, chocolates, flowers, some nice coffee/tea, candle, all nice gifts for a host.

I think the having to open the wine thing is somewhat upper class yesteryear.

Sparkling wine (Crémant great if you don't have a champagne budget)
Flowers
Pot plant
Candle
Hand cream
Chocolates

would all be warmly received I'm sure.

A bottle of wine ( ready chilled if white or sparkling )

and , either
bunch of flowers ( can be stuck in a glass of water by host and dealt with the next day )

nice biscuits ( to be eaten by host with a a cuppa the following day )

Thanks all, so helpful. I've just ordered some fancy hand wash and will get some nice biscuits or chocolates to go with those. So approx £30 spend plus whatever I get on wine (and etiquette above noted- thank you!)

And so what about afterwards...? Is a text thanking enough? They live locally and our kids are at school together so it feels slightly ott to send a card...?

I'd get a seasonal locally grown plant or flowers, wine and non alcoholic drink and some chocs, maybe after dinner mint ones.

Phone call is nicer for saying thank you but I've noticed a lot of people on here don't do phone calls so if you are one of them I think a text will do.

I was taught that too, and I think it’s still broadly true. I’d take wine to a skint friend to drink, to an middling income friend but be clear it’s a gift, wouldn’t take it to posh friends.

I also think that if people have chosen wine they now just lay wine gifts aside no bother (I know I do).

I’m having horrible flash backs to a dinner with one of DH posh relatives who threw a hell of a dinner party and usually had impeccable etiquette. Until we went there one night, flowers and a chilled pricey bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc in hand - which we all drank - and he immediately stashed it somewhere and gave us warm Blossom Hill all night. It was like juice. Revolting.