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.

Eltonjohnssyrup

Fish knives, dessert forks and lecturing other people about etiquette. Princess Margaret would never have let such a person over the threshold.

Are you quite sure? Princess Margaret was renowned for being thoroughly unpleasant. She apparently insisted on being seated first wherever she was using an expression something like “Never before royalty.”

So if you call a mirror a mirror rather than a looking glass you are Non-U and the Us could laugh or pity you

My granny called a mirror a looking glass. I had no idea she was upper class! There was me just presuming it was an Irish saying.

There is a great irony in sneering about snobbery over mirrors or looking glasses while simultaneously insisting that the is a right way to eat a bread roll, OP.

Personally I think saying looking glass for mirror and scent for perfume and all that malarkey sounds horribly affected; unless you are genuinely seriously upperclass.

It's not an Irish saying, apostro, you just come from good stock!

Re. state school children not being aware of etiquette - that is such a ridiculous generalisation.

Many people opt to send their children to state schools for moral and political reasons - not because they cannot afford to!

My large local city is stuffed with excellent state schools which are, in turn, stuffed to the gunnels with the children of “vair vair” middle class parents.

Which is why no-one actually said that Rose.

I try and stop my kids snorting their peas up their nostrils and throwing their chips up in the air and catching them in their mouth like a seal lion. AIBU? DP says I am. I just tell him our kids will never pass for posh unless they stop doing this.

It was implied.

You are being “vair vair” disingenuous.

No wonder efforts towards equality and diversity are so ineffective when so many people are desperate to defend elitism and exclusionary practices

Defending them? Or just stating the facts. I have no control over the way these unis operate.

No it wasn’t implied if you read the posts properly. Rose

There is a great irony in sneering about snobbery over mirrors or looking glasses while simultaneously insisting that the is a right way to eat a bread roll, OP.

What are you actually talking about? There is a 'correct' way to eat one - but it doesn't bother me in the least if someone doesn't!

I saw a post on FB entitled “Stick a form in me, I’m done.” Showing the knife and fork set on an empty plate in a /\ shape.

I know I really shouldn’t judge but both DH and I had table manners drummer into us as children and I feel it unfair others clearly escaped 😂

Also see, fork used like a shovel and knife held like a pen.

@RebeccaWithTheGoodHair - There is a 'correct' way to eat one - but it doesn't bother me in the least if someone doesn't!

The correct way to eat a bread roll is to convey it to your mouth, chew (preferably with your mouth closed) and swallow, as opposed to some other, more obscure, method (e.g. snorting it up your nose) of conveying it to your stomach. Any other "rules", such as tearing rather than cutting, buttering each tiny bit as you go (just why?), are simply conventions within a certain group of people.

"You are being “vair vair” disingenuous."

agreed.

One of my friends just shared a link to this thread with the caption "This is what too much M&S red wine does to you, beware". I laughed.

Are you quite sure? Princess Margaret was renowned for being thoroughly unpleasant. She apparently insisted on being seated first wherever she was using an expression something like “Never before royalty.”

That’s the point. Fish knives and dessert forks and lecturing about etiquette are vulgar (in the opinion of the very poshest people). But a lot of lower middle class people think they are posh so make a point of having/doinf them to look posh but in fact they are doing exactly the opposite. Princess Margaret would have been absolutely horrified to be served with a fish knife or dessert fork. But all the Royal Family will happily go out and BBQ or eat a burger in a bun or a Scotch Egg with their fingers.

Oh my god the bread roll. When I was 19 I did a summer internship at a multinational company and the first day there was this big lunch reception. I was sat next to the other guy from Glasgow, probably a sensitive choice on the part of the organisers to make us feel more comfortable, but he was from Bearsden and I am from one of those bits they used in Trainspotting. I was desperate for carbs and I sat coveting the bread roll for most of the meal, too scared to commit a faux pas by cutting it wrong (I knew that, for example, sawing it in half, removing the doughy bit and shoving my chips in it was probably wrong) but I wasn't sure if I should slice or break. I did consider slipping it into my bag, Heidi style, and eating it in the toilets, but I really wanted it buttered. Realising that the waiter was coming round collecting plates, 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 still managed to have a career in the industry, god knows how

Fucking hell, I'm really glad I don't mix with people who think it's important to eat a bread roll correctly or who would even notice if you were using the wrong knife. That how I want to bring up my children. I wonder if I cut through my bread roll at my wedding? I probably did.

As an events director in a hotel, you really expect me to include directions as to how to use cutlery in my paperwork to prospective clients and for it not to sound patronising?
Or should we do an etiquette class prior to the big day?
So fuck if they don't know which glass is for red or white? It gets drunk either way and it's hardly embarrassing. Usually people have bigger things to worry about then whether the bride used her starter fork.
I've had a FOG tuck the table cloth into his shirt instead of the napkin. The event didn't come to a standstill

This thread reminds me of what Billy Connolly used to say about class - that the only people that are fun to be around are working class people and properly posh ones, because neither have any insecurity about their position in the class hierarchy. It's all the people in the middle, with their pardons and sofas and naice ham shops and different wine glasses that make life hard for everyone else.

Nerr, exactly. I think that the truest piece of ‘manners’ a person can have is to judge someone on their character rather than their cutlery skills.

I’m just imagining the job interview. ‘Right, you have a 1st from Cambridge and an MBA from Harvard. That’s all very nice. But how would you eat an Eclair’?

^^Too much also vv true

I Accidentally set a table on fire waitressing a posh event once. If I ever had the misfortune to sit at a table of people who judged the way other people used or misused cutlery I’d probably set the table on fire on purpose. I’m glad I’ve had the good fortune in life not to end up friends with judgemental wankers.