Tell me about the worst dinner party you've ever been to

[IwishIwishIwish]

We had friends to dinner last night and despite feeling ill I did my best to do a good meal because my mum brought me up to always treat guests well however hard things may be otherwise.

It set me thinking about meals I've been invited to and then I remembered the horribly embarrassing meal we were invited to at a work colleagues of DP last year. I didn't really know them but we went along. On arrival we were served with a glass of ribena. Unusual I think to myself but I quite like ribena (dp hates it). We stood about politely drinking ribena then were told dinner was ready. In each place was a plate with a piece of toast (most of it cold) and in the middle a packet of tesco value pate not even opened and one knife. The 12 of us carefully shared it out. Hostess then produced an apple each cut into quarters with a slither of cheese followed up by a cup of tea or coffee and that was dinner (served with more ribena).

Maybe I'm just a horrible person but it has to be the worst dinner party I've ever been to! Socialising with friends was lovely but surely a dinner party is as much about the food as the socialising?

DP and I had brought a bottle of wine as had all the other invited couples but all of those were squirreled away by host and not seen again. I don't think they were short on money by the way though you can't always tell by looking so they may have been trying to make the best of a bad situation

I've actually been to another quite recently, a 5 course lunch affair with a former client of my Dad's. The food was lovely, and the woman also lovely, but she was the only one drinking alcohol and got progressively more pissed as the afternoon went on. She ended up cracking sex jokes in front of my prudish parents while I squirmed, and then fell asleep at the table just after serving the cheeses.

I had also forgotten to tell her I'm vegetarian, but I politely ate the chicken goujons and brussels pate, because she'd just finished telling us a story about a rude person at a previous dinner party who neglected to tell her of their dietary needs beforehand. So I thought this was not the time, and endured the gripey tum later!

I am in awe of these stories........ they're jaw dropping!

Mine is from my student nurse days......

A fellow (male) nurse invited me to a party he was hosting at his flat that evening after shift finished. Being a rather naive gormless 18 year old (well, this was back in the 70's) I went along at the given hour and as time passed and my glass was refreshed once too often, I then began to wonder where all the other guests (and food) were.
When I saw him lock the door and put the key in his trouser pocket I sobered up bloody fast.
What followed was like a black and white silent movie farce as he chased me round the furniture from room to room.
Eventually I managed to grab a cushion, hide behind a door and as he came through I clobbered him full in the face. He keeled over like a skittle, hit the door frame, and just lay there like a felled tree! I had to rummage through his trouser pockets for the key and then just legged it.

I never told anyone about what happened as I felt so stupid for falling for it.....but he never mentioned it either....probably cos he got ko'd by a mere slip of a lass....or maybe he got amnesia! Who knows!

hf that is gross!

Relatives rent a holiday cottage nearby every year. Last year we were asked over for the day. The meal was a buffet and it was all food (including cooked meats) that they had bought at their home and taken with them - by the time we visited it was a good 10 days old. After lunch the food was left uncovered on the counter ready for the next meal.....(luckily we weren't staying for that and had a macdonalds something from a service station on the way home).

Bloody hell Shimmering! That's scary.

Revenge was surprisingly simple. In the immediate aftermath of the dinner party, my husband's colleague christened the group as The Four Shits and a Bitch. We just made sure that everyone else we knew in their destined cap badge (the same one to which my husband belongs) knew about them. What they failed to grasp in their general ignorance of army spouses is that we talk to one another - from generals' wives all the way down the ranks.

We knew the nickname had stuck when they group turned up for their Young Officers' course and the instructor greeted them with "I've heard about you; you're the Four Shits and a Bitch!". I would love to say they learnt from their mistakes but you wouldn't believe what they did at dinner at the Brigadier's house (pretty much a repeat performance).

In all fairness, two of them grew up and developed some manners but two resigned their commissions early and one was sacked.

Hf - that's appalling!

When we were about 18 - so many years ago now - some friends rented a flat as housemates and threw a housewarming do for all their mates. We were told not to bring anything, they had sorted food and booze.

We arrived to find they had more booze than the local supermarket, which was great! But the food they had artistically laid out on a table consisted of about four bowls of crisps and nuts, a plate with an entire loaf's worth of slices of buttered bread all of which surrounded a centrepiece large dish full of peas! Pea and crisp sandwich anyone? They never explained and we didn't ask. Yup. Fish and chips on the way home!

We were entertaining three couples for dinner. One chap had arrived straight from his club where he had had a few drinks, and visited the loo several times before the meal was served. In the middle of the main course he went again and reappeared looking dreadful and in agony. Luckily another guest was a GP, she grabbed her phone, called an ambulance saying we had a case of acute urine retention, and he was quickly carted off. When we merrily reminisce over this incident another guest always remembers that due to the crisis he never received the second helping of duck which he had been offered.

Not half as scary as it would have been for him Beryl had our ward sister, or better still the Matron got to know about it. They were terrifying enough on their own, but together they were a legend!

These are great keep them coming

I never actually got to this one...

Friend texted me to ask if me, DH and DC wanted to come over for dinner. Except that she didn't, she accidentally texted a colleague of hers with the same first name, not someone she knew well enough to have over for a meal.

However, the colleague texted back that she would love to come. Friend replied asking who she would be bringing, colleague texted it would just be her and John. Now, John is not the name of my DH, but friend assumed it was just a weird predictive text thing and planned dinner, inviting two other couples we knew.

On the day, they are having drinks in the garden when colleague and husband turn up, of course she has no idea why they are here, and makes awkward conversation until her DH twigs and starts mouthing behind their backs "It's the wrong Chihuahua!"

Now, I think I would have had to have come clean and had a laugh about it, but they didn't want to admit there had been a mistake, so the couples that knew each other and these poor not-really-invited people had a meal in what must have been a bit of an odd atmosphere, especially at first.

Friends are convinced that the colleage and her DH wouldn't have noticed anything amiss, but if I'd turned up for dinner and been met with blank, uncomprehending looks, I would have thought something was a bit off...

One my DH insisted on cooking for. He managed to pick ingredients for each course that I cannot choke down even to be polite. They were spectacularly poor choices for a coeliac (me) as well including bread integrated into the starter and couscous with the main. I never have dessert as I'm not fond of the inevitable fruit/cream combinations so I went hungry that night.

I may possibly never forgive him

The guests enjoyed the meal though so that's all that matters. I had to sneak into the kitchen for chocolate

Jins, what an awful thing for your dh to do! My friend is coeliac and when we eat at hers, I expect a gluten-free meal, it wouldn't be fair on her or her dh to expect anything else. And you can cook lovely gluten-free meals

Am PMSL at "It's the wrong Chihuahua!" I know that's not your actual name but it makes it sound funnier!

Oh it was just thoughtlessness and lack of cooking skills. He knew I'd swerve the starter due to the goats cheese and I usually just have salad or veg rather than the carbs so he thought I'd be ok with the main. I hadn't made my aversion to peppers and olives clear enough in the past

He's much better nowadays. Ive had some wonderful meals. It was just that one that combined virtually everything I really dislike into one 3 course meal. He was mortified when he realised but there's not much you can do when you're sitting at the table. My 'not for me thanks' said all that was necessary

I gasped at the OP, hooted at Sooty and cheered the army rejects.

But mostly I'm relieved no-one's mentioned any of my attempts

Veggie couple who would always serve us what became known as 'vomity pie'.

Went one Friday, had said vomity pie, rest of meal and then prepared to leave. They came to the door to wave us off. DP started the car and began to reverse out of their drive. Ran over their cat.

Jins has reminded me of one related to my sister. She realised her marriage was over when her husband said he was going to make a special effort and cook her dinner.

He served stuffed tomato starter, steak main and creme brulee for pud.

My sister is vegetarian and allergic to eggs and tomatoes

DH and I were invited to dinner by fairly good friends - the day before, the wife rang and asked if there was anything we'd rather not eat. I am generally veggie, but can get by if I'm not asked, but she did ask, so I said that I could eat fish but not meat, and definitely nothing 'obviously dead' i.e. with bones or eyeballs. So we turn up the next night and the main course plopped in front of me was.... a dead pigeon, trussed, still with claws (no head, thank God) that had been shot by our host. One pigeon per guest! I am quite quick at sliding the odd unwelcome piece of steak onto a neighbour's plate without anyone noticing, but I couldnt even bring myself to touch the bird . I kept thinking to myself 'why on earth did she even ring up to ask?'......

My story is almost a complete opposite to some of the stories on here!

About 5 years me and ex-p were invited t dinner by one of ex-p's senior colleagues and his new wife.
When we got their the wife said she hoped we didn't mind but she'd decided not to serve a starter but just canapes instead. We said that ws great. She then showed us to the living room where there were about 20 large plates of 'canapes' so that it looked a bit like a small wedding buffet! (There was just the 4 of us eating)Every 30 seconds she would pick up one of the plates and stick it under our noses so we had to take something.

She later took us through to the dining room where she presented us with the main course. It was a roast dinner but one that i have never seen the likes of before or since....It wouldn't have looked out of place as one of those man v food challenges! Each one was on a serving plate like the ones you use to put the turkey on at Christmas. On my platter there was:
enough pork to cover a normal size dinner plate
10 large roast potatoes
3 full size yorkshires
probably enough mash to fill 2 soup bowls
4 different types of veg ( about several large tablespoons full of each)
2 full size sausages (!)
All smothered in gravy

Ex-p had the same. We were both at being presented with this mountain of food. But we didn't want to be rude so we both started to plow our ways through it. I managed to eat about 1/2. P managed about 2/3 of his, but by then we were well and truly stuffed. I had to force myself to swallow the last few mouthfuls (ever seen that christmas dinner episode of the Vicar of Dibley? Yeah, like that )
When I (closely followed by P)finally admitted defeat and put down my knife and fork and said 'thankyou very much, that was delicious (which it was tbf) but i'm completely full now' The wife proceeded to burst into tears and run from the room. Her DH followed her whilst we sat downstairs wondering what was going on. Eventually the husband came back and said his wife was very upset as we had offended her by not eating the meal she had slaved all day over and obviously thought her cooking was terrible!
We apologised and repeated that the meal was delicious but we genuinely were just full. The husband then threw away the last of our food and said he'd tell his wife tat we had finished it off whilst they were upstairs. He said this was what he usually(!) had to do when they had guests . Eventually he persuaded her to come back down. After spending 1/2 hour raving about how delicious the food was to the sullen looking wife we decided to make our escape. At which point she said "you can't leave yet, you haven't had pudding!"
{faints}
Pudding was bout a third of an apple pie each, swimming in a bowl of custard. She sat eyeballing us the whole time so we had to force down every bite. By that point i had gone beyond stuffed and my mouth just swallowed the food on autopilot without me even tasting it. We then staggered to the front door as fast as possible before she could suggest cheese and crackers

ThisIs, that is awful! Did she really think that was a normal amount of food to serve? Did she eat that much herself?

Vote for classics!

Am I little miss judgey pants that the worst one I've been to was where everything was ready meal? There's a very posh shop in our town that sells posh ready meals and all three courses were from there. Now don't get me wrong the meal was lovely tasting but given the wife is a teacher and was on 6 week summer holidays (DON'T get me started on teachers working during the holidays, I KNOW but they've done better dinner parties on a working week Saturday) I just would have expected at least one home cooked course. Believe it or not the one where the guest got hammered and fell asleep on the sofa was better than that because at least the food was home cooked and before he passed out the guest was a real hoot