Both sides of the invitation.
Etiquette is not a set of rules for catching people out. It is the agreed choreography that lets a room relax — and it belongs to the host and the guest in equal measure.
For the host
The house is the host.
- 01Answer the invitation yourself, in the same form it was sent. A forwarded acceptance is not an acceptance.
- 02Decide the hour before you decide the menu. Everything downstream of the hour is easier.
- 03Seat for conversation, not for hierarchy. Two good pairings will carry an evening that a perfect table plan of titles will not.
- 04Ask about dietary needs once, in writing, and never again at the table.
- 05Give the toast a limit and tell the speaker what it is. Ten minutes is generous; four is kinder.
- 06Tell the household staff the shape of the evening before they are asked to improvise it.
- 07Keep one room the guests are not in. It is not unfriendliness; it is the reason you will still be good company at eleven.
- 08Thank the people who worked. Not from the doorway, and not by message the following week.
- 09Never apologise twice for the same thing. Once is manners; twice makes it the memory.
- 10Write the note the next morning, while you still remember the specific thing they did.
For the guest
The guest completes it.
- 01Reply within the week, and reply honestly. A reluctant yes costs the host a place.
- 02Bring what was asked for, or nothing. Not a fourth pudding, however good.
- 03Arrive at the hour, not the hour before it, and not in the middle of the first course.
- 04Ask who else is coming. It changes what you wear and what you talk about, and it is not an intrusive question.
- 05Say what you cannot eat before the day, not when the plate is in front of you.
- 06Do not arrive with an unannounced guest. If circumstances change, telephone.
- 07Find the person standing alone. That is the whole of guest etiquette, and it takes one minute.
- 08Keep the toast short and make it about the host, not about you.
- 09Leave when the evening is at its best. It is the only way anyone remembers it that way.
- 10Write, or telephone, within three days. Not a message in the group thread — to the host.
In the house
Ask the Host about the specific evening.
Evelyn Ashcombe will write the protocol for your actual table — who arrives when, who is seated where, who speaks and for how long. She will not invent a guest list you have not given her.