weddings, cutlery, bread and wine

[RebeccaWithTheGoodHair]

I've been at a few weddings recently in lovely hotels with 3-course wedding breakfasts where the bride, groom and a lot of the guests are blatantly confused by the cutlery.

At DBIL's wedding neither he, new DSIL or her parents had a clue what to use. Poor MIL had to whisper what to do to them - and will probably turn up as an interfering MIL in AIBU herself because of it

Whilst I don't think anyone should have to know what cutlery to use AIBU to think the hotel could at least give the bride and groom a few tips beforehand? Maybe in the paperwork so it's not patronising in any way.

If I didn't know I would like to know so I didn't make a plum of myself at my own wedding.

Not much you can do about the guests I guess but it's mighty irritating to find someone has snaffled your bread roll or one of your wine glasses because they don't know which side is which and the ensuing kerfuffle as the spare one is tracked down.

I sort of panicked, and siad to Bearsden boy "god I never know how to cut these rolls without it going everywhere!" The guy looked at me like something he'd just wiped off his shoe and said "you're supposed to break it" and then turned to the guy on his other side and never spoke to me again. I failed bread!

I went to school in a different but entirely analogous part of Glasgow. I can totally imagine what kind of arse you were seated next to. I did not like those people (who looked down on those of us who got the bus to school).

If you’d been next to me, I’d be blundered straight in and cut and buttered it. So you’d have been able to follow in my footsteps. Or learn from my ‘mistake’ and ponce about tearing bits off and buttering them individually.

Incidentally, the butter double dipping issue is unlikely to occur if everyone just slices their roll and butters it to start with. All the buttering individual pieces is where the danger lies.

I can’t believe adults actually care about how a bread roll is eaten! I’m all for good table manners but that is ridiculous!

Whenever I eat out I see people at other tables who clearly don’t know how to hold a knife and fork properly and use the knife to hold food still whilst tearing at it with their fork.

I have a relative who does this. It drives me insane.He isn't dyspraxic and has no mobility issues. He is right handed but for some reason he has always eaten like left handed person, but because he's right handed he can't actually control the knife and fork properly the other way around, so he does the stab and tear manoeuvre instead.

I want to grab his fork and take his eye out every time I see it.

God some of you really need to get over yourselves. A right and wrong way to hold a fork and knife and butter a roll. Oh do fuck off now 🙄

Rebecca can you please draft a copy of the etiquette guidelines you wish me to insert in my wedding and banqueting proposals? They must not be patronising (or you'll risk me losing business) yet they must be informative (so no one makes a plum of themselves).
I'll genuinely include it in my next proposal and I'll give you the feedback.

Or better yet, shall we just ask everyone here how they would take being given this information when looking at venues to hold their wedding or event?

SharronNeedles - if I was given etiquette guidelines I would take my business elsewhere!

I obviously have very little to think about at the moment as I've been contemplating why the ludicrous "rules" regarding how to eat a bread roll and other ridiculous practices regarding eating came to be accepted as the correct way of doing things rather than the way the hoi polloi did it. I've decided that it's all to do with money.

Those with money tended to be literate so could document their lunacy. Those with money had leisure time so they could spend that time coming up with practices that gave structure to their lives. Those with money were able to buy a variety of food and drink and the paraphernalia to go with it.

The hoi polloi were grateful to have food.

Eltonjohnssyrup

Your username suggests you are a Cockney and yet you are intimate with Royalty. How intriguing!

You express yourself very clearly, too. Excellent!

Would be a nice little business, forget practising for the first dance, etiquette tuition for the first dinner!

Because they never do formal dining. Ever. So they don’t need to know how to set a table for multiple courses.

Never? No important family meals (Christmas, New Years, Easter, birthdays) have multiple courses? Does not have to be Michelin starred meals, but certainly you must have some multi course meals, at least main and pudding?

If we have multiple course meals at home, we get the required cutlery out as it is needed. We don’t set the table with everything first. And we never do starters.

Even at Christmas our dining style is fairly relaxed. Always has been.

As a child my family tended to eat in the living room with plates on our laps.

Absolutely no one would take kindly to the hotel implying they'd be likely to behave like a barbarian in the dining hall without their timely intervention, Sharron, really!

If you don't understand how some adults wouldn't know where to start with a formal place setting of multiple cutlery and glasses then you have no idea how utterly privileged you are. Privilege is the only reason you would know this. I know it because of well off grandparents who ate like this. Privilege. In ordinary life many people don't ever eat like this. I can't remember the last time I ate out somewhere that had those sorts of settings, years ago I imagine. I don't know anybody who would lay their table at home like that, even for a special occasion.

Hmmmmm it seems your idea isn't going down too well Rebecca. What a surprise

And we certainly never have side plates. In fact, I’ve never had a side plate in any meal served to me at someone’s house. Or different types of knives and forks for different courses.

The OP is talking about the side plates, lots of cutlery, and several different glasses set up you get at weddings. I’m certainly not setting up a table that way at home. I couldn’t anyway as we have two types of glasses: wine glasses and beakers. We have one type of knife for eating with. One type of fork. Two types of spoons: big (dessert) and tea spoons. We use the tea spoons to eat pudding as everyone prefers a wee spoon. We only have everyday use plates too - no fancy ones to bring out for special occasions. Small plates are used for toast at breakfast and things like that. Big plates for bigger meals. And we one type of mug too, but they very rarely get used as no one drinks tea or coffee.

But surely you have a side plate if you have soup? Or pasta with garlic bread? Just put it on the left every time and your kids will absorb that that is where it belongs. Job done.

Just musing - in a strange reversal, the first time my son will ever have eaten a meal from his lap rather than from a table will have been in his room at Oxford, having decided to eat microwave meals with his friends rather than go to Hall...

Nope. No side plates for soup (DS2 hates soup, so we never have the kind you’d dip bread in). No side plates for garlic bread (I’m not sure why you’d need one for it).

It doesn’t matter how many different knives/forks/spoons etc you have had experience with, it’s pretty simple, just work from the outside in. No confusion, no guessing. Any exemptions for any ‘odd’ dish you may order would be completely moot at a wedding with a set menu. Outside in. How hard could it be?

I also don’t understand the issue with the glasses etc. why were they choosing their own? The waiter pours the drink into the correct glass. You don’t pick one up hoping it’s correct and offer it to the waiter. I’m lost.

I do think the bread thing is reasonable with people unused to eating out, not everyone would know what to do but at a wedding I’d certainly hope people just shut their eyes to this and didn’t snigger about it.

I have had to go to VERY formal meals in a work context. The whole set-up is extremely intimidating, from the company (very senior, mixture of genuinely very posh and defensively pretentious) to the complicated array of tableware. That's before you get to the port... Knowing the rules, and knowing to wait and watch if you're not sure, makes it that little bit more manageable. As a lower-middle class, state-educated kid, I had no way of knowing I'd ever be in such circles.

agreed

Really whiskyowl? Show me where I said ’state school children not being aware of etiquette’

I said nothing of the sort, and it’s total bollocks.

You implied it by using the broad brush treatment.

I just can’t understand how you get to adult hood without knowing to work your way in bread on left wine on right
Because some of us grew up poor? So no posh meals out, small table for Christmas dinner so no room for side-plates, no extra money for bread rolls, just a main lunch and then Christmas pudding. Cutlery arranged by handedness. Glasses where there's space.

The inhumanity of my not being taught in school where it was served on plastic trays with a cutlery space in the middle and a dip for the cup.

Nope.

I said ‘students from state schools report feeling like outsiders in a culture they’re not used to’. And that can be avoided ‘if they already know how to deal with things like formal dinners’.

What I did not say nor did I imply that most state school students ‘are not aware of etiquette’. Most are, some private school students aren’t. That there are loads of middle class children in the state system goes without saying.