When Emily Post published her defining treatise on manners and entertaining, breezily titled Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home, in 1922, she hardly could have imagined our world now, where FaceTime doesn’t mean actual face-to-face conversation, and the first thing guests say to each other is “Can I use your charger?”
“I think she would have thought all of it was so cool,” guesses Lizzie Post, her great-great-granddaughter and current mantle carrier of the etiquette doyenne’s legacy at the Emily Post Institute in Vermont. “She would have loved the sharing of photos with family and the like, but I think she would say what we say, which is that when it gets too personal, it’s a problem.”
And then there are dinner parties, a meal with friends sandwiched between status updates and careful cropping; a simple pleasure that was once one of the great joys of entertaining in the era of the elder Post, who crafted it into a fine art. We asked Lizzie, who hosts a podcast on American Public Media, with her relative Daniel Post Senning, called Awesome Etiquette, to channel her great-great-grandmother and update her dinner-party rules for the hashtag generation.
Guest: Do not arrive early. For this there is no exception. Lizzie Post is very clear: “Walk around the block, go pick up some fresh flowers, anything. It is rude and it puts your host in an uncomfortable position, so whatever you do, do not arrive before the time listed on the card.”
Guest: In the (regrettable, but likely) event you are running late, be up front with the host about your E.T.A., perhaps even overestimate. Many a data plan has been exhausted with minute-to-minute updates about getting on fictitious trains or phantom pileups on the F.D.R. Be brief and honest and leave the protracted sagas to Tolstoy. Also, give the host permission to proceed without you, and if you’re going to be more than an hour late, Post advises, “Ask the host if it’s better if you just don’t come.”
Host: Be ready when you said the evening would begin. It sounds pretty simple, but it’s a common mistake, Post laments. “One of the easiest mistakes that hosts and hostesses make is that they’re not ready on time. Let’s say you told people to arrive at seven. Chances are people will get there between 7 and 7:30, but you tell people to arrive at 7, and at 7, you’ve still got way too much stuff on the stovetop and you haven’t laid out the hors d’oeuvres or drinks.”
Guest: As many etiquette conventions have fallen away, this one is timeless: do not bring someone unless you have cleared it with the host first. Even if it is not a seated dinner, it is not a barn raising. More than likely it will be fine, but who are you to decide? If an unexpected plus-one materializes, Post offers, “The good gracious host is going to welcome the uninvited guest in. They’re going to figure out how to rearrange the plates, add an extra place setting, and make it work. Make an uninvited guest feel just as comfortable.” Cher Horowitz grandstanding aside, the more may be the merrier, but it is not your call as a guest.
Host: Lively conversation will no doubt wander to the realm of politics in the coming year, and whether it’s divisive or just plain dull, a good host can reroute a boring or inelegant conversation on a dime. The best way to steer the conversation if it goes into politics, religion, or someone’s burgeoning sex life is to politely interject and offer, “Sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering if I could get everyone’s opinion on X,” and, says Post, people will be happy to oblige. “You invite people into a topic that’s about you and it’s a clear note to the offenders to change course,” Post adds.
Host: Any party worth going to will have a well-stocked bar, which means the chance of someone overdoing it is possible, if not very likely. What to do with someone who’s had one too many? Look to our nation’s Cold War policy of yore: containment. Isolate them. “Put them in a room and offer to keep them for the night. It’s really a safety issue,” says Post, adding that you are more or less taking on that responsibility when you serve alcohol in your house. “Take away their keys, say, ‘I’m insisting, you don’t have a choice, you’re staying here for the night. We will work it all out in the morning,’ ” Post generously recommends.
Guest: Speaking of booze, how many bottles of pinot have to die before we stop bringing subpar, last-minute wine to dinner parties? As much of a no-brainer as you may think the bottle of wine-as-tribute is, therein lies its downfall: very little thought. A guiding principle about what to bring begins with simply asking the host. And if his or her answer is a breezy “nothing,” do just that, as it is the host’s preference. If you are so compelled beyond the specific instructions, Post suggests something seasonal that may not be for the evening, like a jam or preserve or the perennial bouquet of flowers (already in a vase). And Vanity Fair has some suggestions, too.
Host: If any of your guests love you at all, they will Instagram the dickens out of the evening you so carefully and flawlessly executed so that friends of friends will quake with envy after finding you on the “Explore” page. But there is a time and place for all of this when actual sentient beings are together, which is to say: keep your phone away for the better part of the evening and certainly while you’re at the table. “As a host, it is live and let live, or you can specify on the invite itself, ‘I am dying to have a completely detached meal,’ and say you can use them during cocktails, but not at dinner.”
Guest: If you are newly arrived in a city or neighborhood, don’t shy away from any invitations. “And that is a time to definitely bring a gift for the hostess. Your best bet is flowers already in a vase,” Post asserts. And do arrive on time—first impressions being what they are.
Guest: Pitching in is admirable if the situation requires it, but it can often verge into awkward territory. “You can always offer to help out, but you don’t have to insist upon it. You know, you’re not this person’s best friend. Let yourself be a guest. Don’t try to insert yourself into everything.”
Host: When the host decides the evening is over, he or she, according to Post, need do one thing: “Close down the bar. Once you cut people off from alcohol, they’re ready to go somewhere else or they’re ready to go home.” And if that doesn’t work, simply begin talking about the evening in the past tense: “What a great night this was!” Which is to say, “We’re done here.” The key is to be clear, and they will get the point.
Guest: The thank you is definitely the most impactful gesture for the guest. “Say thank you when you leave, of course. And especially with people you’ve just started entertaining with, the absolute best thing is to send a written note the next day,” Post insists. However, one should take care to keep the gesture between the host and guest. One way to not thank someone, as well meaning as it is—don’t post on their Facebook wall or other spaces. “We live in a day when people are so sensitive, and if you weren’t invited, people get hurt. So I think keeping the thank you private is the best approach,” she counters. Or reference an inside joke from the evening on a fellow guest’s Instagram, like a human being.
