Recently we were invited to an anniversary dinner for friends. There were about 18 of us at a restaurant. The husband's brother and his wife arrived an hour late with no excuses. The entire party sat around waiting for them, until the restaurant manager mentioned the food was ready, and they had booked the room for later that day and would have to prepare it for the next party. I was all for waiting 10 minutes and then proceeding, but all of us who arrived at the appointed time waited for these two to show up. Would you have waited? Have you ever been at a function where the majority of people waited for inept or inconsiderate people to arrive?
Absolutely not! My wife and I have family members who do the same with no regard to others. We host the majority of family functions, and the rule is, whatever time we state dinner will be served, that is when it will be. Case closed.
I agree when the food is ready to be served then go ahead with the meal. If folks can't be considerate enough to turn up at the right time then the fault lies with them.
I would wait maybe 10-15 minutes to see if they called to explain but that would only be if I liked them to begin with. If I didn't much like them I would have sent them a message after 15 min. telling them that the dinner had to be cancelled because of illness so they didn't have to make the trip to the restaurant. Then I would have continued on with the celebration with people who actually cared.
Nothing irks me more than people who are late! I would have gone ahead with dinner and let the late ones have cold dinner!
Queen Alexandra used to be late for some royal functions. She had a title. She was the Queen Consort of King Edward VII of England.
Hell no I wouldn't wait! I would most certainly text or call them to see if they were OK, but beyond that, I'd just go ahead with the meal. Further, it's rude and inconsiderate of them to not at least call or text to let someone know they'd been hung up and to go ahead without them. That kind of basic politeness is becoming less and less common these days unfortunately. Like Licenter, I host the majority of our family functions and so sure, sometimes one of the attendees is late, but most always with a call to say they're running behind, or I'll call to see how close they are. Sometimes I'll go ahead and serve, sometimes not, depending on the information, what I'm cooking, who has to leave at what time (some have little kids they need to put to bed etc) Typically the lateness is because someone got held up at work (two of my kids work on w/e's) so that's out of their control, or a child slept beyond their usual nap time and so the schedule got messed up. Whatever the reason, there's always an apology to me and to the group for their tardiness.....though because this is family, typically it's met with feigned disbelief, claims that they didn't really want them here anyway, exaggerated annoyance that there's gonna be less food now, etc. Family, y'know?
I agree with everyone here. Over here, an appointed time is the appointed time. Period. If you want to give the tardy ones a leeway, then ten minutes would be the maximum. We are strict about appointments over here.
