Neglected At Party

This all just reminds me why I don't do parties...

Yes, some people make the mistake of inviting too many people to parties in too small venues.

The result is often overcrowding and not enough to food.

Then the hosts blithely swan around as if all ok instead of attending to guests needs.
If you are the host, then you have an obligation to see things run smoothly.

On several occasions I have thoughtfully chosen and wrapped gifts for the hosts birthdays etc, but they are usually ignored and put to one side. I never knew if they liked the gifts or not.
As for a thankyou!!

Seems the venue wasn't big enough (no seats/tables) and the catering underestimated or perhaps the timing meant folk were extra hungry. You were late as were others so you can't really complain about the lack of food. No seating though, think that could have been addressed. Wouldn't make an issue out of it, one night not worth bothering about. Just reply saying it was good to see her enjoying herself.

The food offering consisted of a burger and chips. That's all

pen50 we've been looking at wedding venues recently and have found that a lot of them are offering similar for the evening food nowadays: burgers, hot dogs, pizza.
Not what I'd fancy either, and even worse as you couldn't actually eat it ☹️

DH and I were playing for a wedding g of a good friend. 2.5 hours drive from where we lived. Canapés which ran out early and nothing else offered. Band were told not to drink anything until after they had played. Brass section had the sense to acquire a few bottles of champagne and put them in their cases! Just as well as they had officially run out by the time the band finished!

I remember phoning our local Italian restaurant who kindly offered to stay open so we could get something on return as there and back in the same day.

A more recent example was entirely different. DH and I were playing for the ceremony and were guests at the reception. The brides parents insisted on putting us up in the hotel the night before and night of the wedding.
We were invited to both the pre and post wedding parties… it was all great fun and they appreciated what we did and we appreciated their hospitality. They even offered to pay for our drinks but we refused :-)

biglouis

In these circumstances I would have asked if there was any more food/drink/seats. They could have sent someone to the supermarket or convenience store for more supplies. The squeaky gate gets the oil.

Agreed, love your pragmatism

I do believe folk are just too over sensitive when things don’t go their way. You made the effort to attend so well done for that.

Yes, very upsetting and irritating to get somewhere and there’s no food. And being only an hour or so late with a good reason would be more than enough for me as a host to make sure you got something to eat even if it was a sandwich or a takeaway pizza. I would be ABSOLUTELY mortified if a guest of mine was hungry or thirsty, no matter how late they were, unless they rolled up four hours late and VERY drunk! 😎

I really hate being late and if I was I wouldn't expect there to be food left. Surely if you know you're going to be so late you'd expect this too, and grab something to eat on the way? You weren't the Birthday girl or star of the show and can't expect to be treated as such.
I remember going to a catered wedding where we were all seated at tables and had to wait to be told to go and help ourselves to food. We were the last to go up (annoying as we were right next to the buffet) and there was very little left. Now that was irritating!

Many years ago I went to a smart drinks party at the house of my then husband’s boss. The boss’s wife made a big deal on the invitations of how a ‘home made’ supper would be served. Eventually after a lot of alcohol on empty stomachs (no nibbles were in evidence), at 9 o’clock she gave each of us a small portion of ‘fish pie’ with peas. The peas were a grey colour and had been boiled within an inch of their lives. The fish pie consisted of a small amount of tasteless floury white sauce topped with hard, lumpy packet mashed potato. As for the ‘fish’, I had none at all in my portion, my husband found one tiny prawn. It was utterly vile and inedible. The odd thing was that the hostess seemed inordinately pleased with herself and obviously expected lavish praise for her culinary efforts. It was very awkward. A party never to be forgotten!

I feel both you and your friend are at fault here.

You knew you would have to arrive late and messaged her to say so, receiving no reply, so assumed it was all right to turn up late.

In hindsight, it would have been wiser to have phoned her whenever you realised that your trip abroad conincided with her party and made quite sure that you were welcome to come late.

On the other hand, a hostess is sadly lacking in manners if she, as is the case here, has not made sure that there is food and drink and seating for the correct number of invited guests, and that something had been put aside for you, once she realised that you would be late.

If you intend to keep up the friendship after this snub, your best course is to phone or text saying "Thanks for inviting us, sorry once again that we were late. Hope you enjoyed the day." and leave it at that.

If you are so disappointed that you intend to drop the acquaintence: do nothing. Not particularly polite, but more honest than sending an insincere thank you, and more dignified than complaining.

One of our daughters organised an Afternoon Tea to celebrate my 60th Birthday. My MiL took centre stage and demanded all the attention from the family and I was left in the corner colouring with one of our granddaughters. I wish now that I had said something but didn't want to cause an atmosphere. Said MiL is still as bad, in fact worse since she was widowed, always has to be centre of attention.

MissAdventure

I've just remembered going to a barbeque where there was no food to be had.
They'd eaten it all, and half washed and wiped up when we arrived.

Yes, BBQs are awful, you get there and sometimes find thaty they've not been lit, you wait for hours for food, then often get charred sausages or raw chicken. And you can only cook so much at once so there is a long wait between batches.
I have to confess that I used to cook everything in the oven and then put it on the BBQ, though today I wouldn't have one at all.

Airflyingfairy it's good to offload and you aren't stupid. These social problems can bedevil us and let's face it, most of our problems are '1st world', but that's the world we are fortunate enough to inhabit.

I do deplore the tendency of some people on this site to put others down and trivialise their concerns. Surely mutual support is better?

Most parties have a start time and you sort of arrive any time afterwards, so I would say if start is 7.30, latest arrival (without prior explanation) is 8.15ish. Buffet opens about 8 and there is PLENTY. Parties are supposed to be relaxed - at least, that's how I've always thought of it

I think your friend is a poor hostess, that's all. If it had been my party I would have been continually scanning the room to make sure all was well (which is probably why I hate giving parties and have NEVER had a birthday party!)

The rudest experience I had was when going with my partner to a friend's house for supper. My 'best' friend also came, with her husband, so there were six of us at the table. The hostess and my then best friend (bit of a silly notion, but there...) got deep into conversation about things they were both into - local choirs and culture - none of which I was involved in, or knew a thing about. The host talked to my friend's husband about their shared interests - not as exclusively as the other two women but enough to make my partner feel left out. We almost literally said nothing but 'please' 'thank you' and 'lovely' for about two hours. The following day I felt so low - stupid, confused and put down.

When I'm giving a supper party I'm always aware of how others are feeling and whether everyone is included, as much as possible, but I'm still not sure if our hosts were blind and indifferent, or just thought we were dull, boring and not worth bothering with. (By the way, I'm not really stupid. I have an MA, I'm a writer and counsellor, and I've written many books and I have plenty to say on certain subjects!)

Since then I've not bothered with the hosts, except for a thank-you note, and I see much less of the woman I thought of as the friend closest to me.

Your friend was possibly overwhelmed and just didn't think (or maybe had a tad too much Prosecco!). That's life - we have to harden up and shrug it off!

We went to a wedding this year (DH's side and quite close). First we were told that we were being invited to the evening reception (130 miles from home) but not the ceremony (fair enough), then we got a formal invite for the whole thing, thought they'd had a change of heart, booked our hotel accordingly. A week before, DH was chatting to his relative, said something along the lines of "See you Saturday morning", only for a sharp intake of breath and to be told sorry there'd obviously been a mix up and we were definitely only expected for the evening.

It got worse.

We duly turned up (and I'm pretty sure we were the only ones not to have been invited to the ceremony). Drinks were from a cash bar (I'm not complaining about paying but it was a long way to travel for not even a glass of wine.) The food offering consisted of a burger and chips. That's all. And unfortunately I'm coeliac (yes, we had notified them) but there was no gluten free alternative.

So, we danced a bit, I got mildly drunk, had a bar of chocolate from a vending machine for my dinner when we got back to our hotel, and an indifferent night feeling really quite hungry.

The wedding invitation had solicited cash rather than gifts. They didn't get any from us...

Reading the responses on here temps me to make a list of those not to invite to my party!

It's quite possible the birthday girl didn't organise the event or some sort of mistake was made with numbers. If she was oblivious to the problem, don't spoil her memory of the party by mentioning the issue. She must be a good friend for you to have made that special effort to get there. Just write it off as one of life's odd blips and plan to meet up soon in a mutually suitable venue for lunch or whatever.

Personally, I wouldn't respond. The fact that there was no food left when you arrived is bad planning and even if the host was busy with family/friends when you arrived it simply doesn't excuse anything. If this was at a venue an caterers were employed to provide food they should not have put all the food out in one go, that just asks for the greedy buggers who don't bother to have dinner before attending a catered event and think is it ok to scoff to their hearts content and disregard anyone else.
You say you've been a friend for over 20 years and I think you are entitled to feel put out.
Put the experience behind you now, you can't change anything, just learn from the experience.

kittylester

How old are you, OP? Do you read any of the threads where people have real problems?

Thats a little mean

Whoever was in charge of hosting did a poor job, putting all the food etc. out at once and failing to provide enough chairs and look after guests. I wouldn't blame the birthday girl, though, as she probably delegated a lot of the organising.

Perhaps more people turned up than expected? We had that once with a kiddies party (they brought along a hoard of starving siblings, friends and parents) so we had to order a stack of pizzas - and I cut all the little cakes in half!

Then I’m afraid being so rude as to turn up half way through the evening -even with a reason- you can’t complain that you were “neglected”.

They weren't rude MawtheMerrier. In fact they made a great effort to get there.

Blossoming

I can understand your feelings but I don’t think there’s anything you can do except let it go. Just send a reply thanking them for the invite.

I agree with this.
Kittylester that wasn't nice.

kittylester

How old are you, OP? Do you read any of the threads where people have real problems?

As the OP said - she's just having a "moan". Which people do from time to time with the minor irritations of life.

I don't see how that detracts from people posting about their "real" problems.

The story brought back an embarrassing memory from many years ago when we gave a party, if you can call it that, to thank the friends who had helped us renovate a house. We were so poor that I had to put the food out in the exact number of portions, hoping nobody would take two! No guests brought any contributions either. Happy days.

Callistemon21

You could send a thank you to your friend and say:
"Sorry we had to leave early but we had to get to the chippie before it shut"

That would have been my reply too!