How far in advance would you book a special birthday meal? AIBU?

[notanotherguitar]

Just to see if IABU. Sister offered to be the one to book mum’s birthday meal as she works near mum’s favourite restaurant and will just pop in after work, I said that’d be really great if she didn’t mind doing it.

She has just phoned to say they’re fully booked and I said did you not book it a while back? And she said she didn’t expect it to be booked up this far in advance … it’s next Saturday!

Central London and my faves are booked for months. Also other tourist areas are really booked up. Managed a month ago to get bookings for two Cornwall restaurants affected by staff shortages and with no luck service at all. No choice about dates or time. Took what I could get.
It a different landscape.
Will your mas fave do a take away/delivery at all ?

Lunch not luck.

Depends. If it’s a high maintenance group of people that find it hard to synchronise their diary then I’d book 1 or 2 months in advance. If it’s normal people then 1 or 2 weeks.

Usual circumstances probably 2-3 weeks but right now a lot of places have reduced their usual capacity so I’d say at least a month. I’ve booked 2 meals recently, one at a local Italian and one at a chain restaurant. Booked both 6 weeks in advance just incase.

We're going somewhere lovely on a Saturday night for our wedding anniversary in October, I've already booked it!

Probably a month to six weeks.

Even a pub meal round here is 2 weeks. A nice restaurant? 4-8 weeks. It's because they have to space out the tables.

Everything is a long wait these days.

I'd do it as soon as the decision is made about date, time, venue - why wait? Unless it's an unusual situation, you can cancel without penalty.

But you're in the situation you're in, now, and nobody has a time machine. Can she put her name on a waiting list in case someone else cancels, and in the meantime look for another nice place which still has a vacancy? (But remember to cancel the backup if the first choice comes through).

On a Saturday?

3-4 weeks minimum (especially if more than 2 of you)

Everything round here is booked up for the rest of the summer on a Saturday night unless you want a table at 10pm or something. It's worth trying for other nights or lunchtime, or asking if they will put you on their cancellation list as they will have lots

Usually about 4 weeks. For my favourite small restaurant on my birthday I think I booked about 8 weeks ahead for 15-20 people.

It really pisses me off when people don't book stuff and then act surprised. I might come across as a control freak sometimes but actually half my friends and family are just too fucking laid back! 😄

pre -Covid, depending on how special 1-3m ahead.

we have planned parties (especially big birthdays & after baptisms) at home 6m+ ahead.
we have a lot of family & friends abroad so if it is special it's never spontaneous.

if it's not just us (ie DH, me & kids) I'd organise it at least 4-6weeks ahead.

post-Covid : not gone out to celebrate at all, apart from 1 time last August when it waa just us and we booked it the day before 🤣

My sister has a special birthday next week. I booked the table mid May, for 20 of us.

In the current situation everything gets booked up weeks in advance. I was booking restaurant tables for this summer back in March!

I would book as soon as I had a date. I currently have reservations for lunch and dinner for the first weekend of August.