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.

Do parents have no responsibility for teaching g their children? Social etiquette should come from the home. People spend enough of their lives googling actors ages maybe they could google some educational stuff too!

One can always tell a gentleman by the way he uses a butter knife even when dining alone.

I don’t agree that this is for schools to teach. Parents seem to be shunting more and more responsibility onto teachers for stuff that is their job.

It’s absoutely basic that parents should teach table manners, how to lay a table, and how to eat a formal meal with multiple courses.

Outside in, glass on the right, napkins on the left. How hard is that?

Thing is, the OP isn’t complaining about a lack of basic table manners. I see no reason to assume that the B&G piled in with their hands, ate with their mouths open, chewing loudly and started a food fight.

Instead the OP thinks they should be embarrassed by not knowing all the rules when faced with a formal dinner service and a table crowded with crockery, cutlery and glasses. Given people often only encounter this type of thing once in a blue moon, no wonder they aren’t always certain whether their side plate is on the left or right.

Xpost - martellandginger

Good point about google. And maybe less time on the Xbox?

at the silliness of this entire thread.

Instead the OP thinks they should be embarrassed by not knowing all the rules when faced with a formal dinner service and a table crowded with crockery, cutlery and glasses. Given people often only encounter this type of thing once in a blue moon, no wonder they aren’t always certain whether their side plate is on the left or right.

Once in a blue moon? Or every time you go to a restaurant?

Everyone will have to go to weddings, anniversaries, and potentially work dinners. So everyone needs to learn this.

It’s absoutely basic that parents should teach table manners, how to lay a table, and how to eat a formal meal with multiple courses.

Why is it absolutely basic, if the only time they’re likely to be faced with a ‘formal meal’ is when they’re invited to a wedding (which may be every few years)?

Everyday table manners are one thing. Formal dining is quite another.

I thought you were supposed to tear off little bite sized pieces of bread and butter each one individually just before you eat it?

Personally I just dunk the whole roll in my soup unbuttered.

RoseWhiteTips they did! You weren’t allowed to get up and clear your place until it had been checked and you had put your knife and fork together in the middle of the plate, fork sticking up, you couldn’t rest the knife between the tines either, they had to be next to each other. I’ve no idea if it was just an overzealous person or if the school told them to do it but I would have been about 4 years old and I still remember it to this day!

Once in a blue moon? Or every time you go to a restaurant?

I think quite a lot of us rarely eat in the kind of restaurants that have multiple plates and sets of cutlery. You don’t need to know all this to eat in Nando’s.

My children have known how to use chop sticks since an early age because we often eat in restaurants where you are offered them. I don’t judge other people who haven’t taught their children to use them.

Why is it absolutely basic, if the only time they’re likely to be faced with a ‘formal meal’ is when they’re invited to a wedding (which may be every few years)?

That post covered table manners and setting a table which you need to do daily.

Formal dining is simply an extension of that. There’s not that much to it. You will need it every time you go to restaurant, a wedding, office dinners etc.

And lots of people don’t go to fancy fine dining restaurants for anniversaries. Nor do they have formal work dinners.

So, yes, lots of people only ever encounter this at weddings. And they may go years between wedding invitations. They might also have social circles who opt for buffets at their weddings, meaning they encounter this sort of thing very irregularly.

Oh and I would never dream of telling someone they weren’t following the ‘rules’ as obviously I know that is the height of rudeness.

However I have had several people comment that because I’m eating ‘properly’ that it’s not exactly the most efficient way to eat and they take pride in being able to get as much food onto their forks and into their mouths in the fastest way possible, I suppose that is reverse snobbery.

My children have known how to use chop sticks since an early age because we often eat in restaurants where you are offered them. I don’t judge other people who haven’t taught their children to use them.

If you’ve managed to teach them how to use chop sticks, which are optional in the UK anyway, why can you not cover the basics of formal dining, which is very straightforward and doesn’t require mastering a technique?

You don’t need to set a table daily. Not everyone has a dining table, or space for one. Or people might choose not to use it.

That post covered table manners and setting a table which you need to do daily.

Daily? I set a table once or twice a year!

Not everyone has a dining table, most people have a kitchen table. I don’t accept that most people can get through life without knowing how to set one.

If you’ve managed to teach them how to use chop sticks, which are optional in the UK anyway, why can you not cover the basics of formal dining, which is very straightforward and doesn’t require mastering a technique?

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

They do regularly eat food that is presented with chopsticks. And I didn’t teach them to use them. They pretty much taught themselves because they wanted to.

Dining at home is pretty informal. DS1 often grabs the cutlery from the drawer and puts it in the middle of the table for everyone to grab their own. Someone issues everyone with a plate. I put food out in serving bowls and people help themselves. If there’s dessert, DS1 will go and grab some spoons for everyone when we’re serving it. If the food is likely to be messy, I chuck the roll of kitchen towel on the table so everyone can wipe their hands when necessary.

Daily? I set a table once or twice a year!

How do you eat?

I learned all this bollocks when waitressing in a fancy restaurant (never met anyone as judgemental as the maitre d'). Most of it doesn't matter.

But when I was on a residential school trip where each staff member sat and ate a three-course meal with 7 of the young people, it became very very obvious who had table manners and who didn't:

• piling in to eat before anyone else had got theirs
• lunging to get the communal dish first, helping themselves and screw anyone else
• refusing to pass the salt and pepper
• loudly talking about how they didn't like the food
• loudly talking about how they didn't like the look of other people's food
• refusing to help tidy up after

It was a trying few days. Enforcing basic civility made for a pretty tense atmosphere. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it doesn't really matter which fork they use or when, but please for the love of all that is holy try to teach kids some consideration for others at the dinner table.

Those kids were all at a fee-paying school, btw.

I've never been to a restaurant with a fully cutlery/crockery laid out and I've eaten at a lot of fancy places. In Michelin starred restaurants with umpteen-course tasting menus, they bring new cutlery with each course as part of the service.

I've only ever seen this at the kind of weddding/banquet where there are insufficient servers for the number of diners, necessitating a ton of metalware to be dumped in ugly fashion on the table.

Well to be fair that makes you quite unusual, PinkSparkly. Most people eat at a table.

"dinner table" in my post refers to any table at which one or more persons might eat a meal.

most people have a kitchen table

Sigh. Some people on MN really do have no idea.

A significant proportion of everyone I know have kitchens that are far too small for a table. Ive been looking at houses, and I cannot afford a single one with a kitchen big enough for a table.

Many of those houses don’t have room for a table in the (singular) living room either. It’s really not uncommon to have too little space.