Yep, you can do it that way - which is obvious, but its also clear - and an understandable way to stratify your guests.
When I married, we had a private ceremony where about six guest came. A larger dinner in a different venue for a little over a dozen - and a large party in a third venue starting after 8:00pm for a few hundred. I’m sure people figured out that there were parts of the day not everyone was invited to attend - after all, we had to get married, and we had to eat.
I’da went to mcdonald’s and brought it back to the party to make a point.
Bonus points if you bring back a “jennie” half-size bottle of wine from a liquor store & only one cup.
“Nice house! I can see now how you can afford it. BTW, thanks for letting us tail-gate on your patio. Hope the gift covers the rental on the space…”
Ida went to McDonald’s and then just gone home. Hopefully the host would ask the next day so I could say (nicely) “Sorry, I hadn’t had dinner yet and I was starving so I slipped out to find get fast food. By the time I found a place it was already 6:30 so I just headed home since I had an hour drive.”
But here’s the problem, you have a couple of guys that just went straight for the beer and were perfectly happy and Monstro, who IIRC, is a bit on the shy side. Then you have the host of the party who, maybe just isn’t a good host. Maybe he had more food or more cake but since no one asked, he never brought it out since he thought everyone was happy. Monstro, I know you’re like me with that, you know someone has the ability to do you a favor, they might even want to do you a favor, but you hate to bug them about it.
In this case, I’d hate to stomp out of the party hoping the host would ask me why and have him say “Oh, I’m sorry, we had more food, I just didn’t think you guys were hungry” or find out find out it was just due to some mis-communication, like he told John that you guys were going to be getting there after the food was served and John said he would tell everyone else so your anger is misdirected.
Incredibly rude of your co-worker and I’d be crossing her off my potential friend list.
Your co-worker is an ass.
I’ve been to tiered parties, my parents hosted them at Christmas. The family would come first and we’d do the family type celebrations including a gift exchange. Later friends, neighbors and the other side of the family would start coming over. There was always plenty of food and drink and my parents would have been horrified to think somebody left hunger or sober (unless of course they wanted to leave sober, somebody has to drive).
I have friends who throw tiered parties as well. A small get together for family and then everyone else comes over. There is always plenty of food and drink and the cake isn’t cut until every one is there. They would be upset if there wasn’t enough food or drink, a lot of the time I get a doggie bag, they are begging people to take the leftovers.
I’ve been to BYOB parties but it was always stated on the invitation and even then soft drinks were provided, although I always brought my own and extra as well.
I don’t know what’s socially acceptable or not. Everything I know about parties, I’ve learned from my mother–who hosts wonderful though informal affairs. She always lets people know to make themselves at home. She points to the plates and napkins and lets everyone to help themselves. There’s always an abundance of food. When I help her with her shindigs, there are usually so many leftovers that we don’t know what to do with them.
There was none of that here. There were some dried out remnants on the stove which the flies were picking over. And there was the aforementioned chips out in the screened-in porch area. But no sustenance was left. No crudites or fruit or anything like that left. Just beer and inedible chips.
It could be that there wasn’t a whole lot of food even for the people who attended the “real” party, which would explain the lack of leftovers. Still, it was a bit frustrating to see all the evidence of food consumption.
No, I don’t think there was miscommunication. I think this coworker is just really bad at throwing parties, and I’m really bad at declining invitations from her. I think going forward, I’m going to start flexing my NO muscle with her and try not to feel guilty about it.
Even if you just have a single tier party, you don’t let the food and drink run out :-/
You ended up at a dud.
Some people are just terrible at throwing parties. My parents went to a kid birthday party a few years back (they knew the adults). A little while into the party one of the parents pushed a chair over a cabinet and dug out some open bags of chips and found some warm 2 liter bottles of soda. Food hadn’t crossed their minds. The next time they had a party (I was at this one), they ordered pizzas…sport peppers on all of them. Even after picked them off quite a few people couldn’t eat them since they were far to spicy. There’s other stories. They make better guests than hosts.
Go ahead and decline, make up a reason, whatever. But if office parties or even get togethers happen on any kind of a regular basis, go to at least some of them or eventually you’ll stop getting invited and get talked about instead. “Why isn’t monsto here?” “We didn’t invite her, it’s not like she was going to come”. Even if it just means going out for a drink with them at the bar and leaving early.
I meant to discuss this in my last post. :smack:
I do a lot of catering. When I take orders, many people don’t know how much to order so the first thing I ask them (if they’re not sure and need help) is “Do you want to be sending everyone home with food or do you want to run out?”. About half the people say “I want everyone to get as much food as they want” and about half the people say “It’s fine if I run out, people don’t need second and third helpings of everything and it’ll be less to clean up at the end”. I mean, we still make sure there’s plenty of food for everyone, but a lot of people don’t want to spend an extra hundred dollars on food that they’ll end up giving away or throwing out (or eating for the next week) just on the off chance that Uncle Jim or Sara’s boyfriend can go back for more potato salad or a third sandwich.
True, and maybe the “It was a long drive and I’m starving! Where’s the food?” should be said with the best naive voice that can be mustered. (sorry if that sounded like “mustard”, OP.)
If the answer comes back “there’s no food left”, with no car, the OP is pretty much stuck saying,
“Oh… Well… I have $5. Who’s up for Dominoes? Say, whats the house number here again?” Then make damn sure to order it.
Then the next time there is a [del]gift giving/fundraiser[/del] party at Cow-Orkers place, make sure the line “So, who’s going to bring the Dominoes?” gets dropped for the length of their employment.
Ah, didn’t occur to me. I come from a long line of hearty-sized people in the catering business (but I don’t take orders, I just sling the food!) so I’ve never experienced the latter. lol
It could be just that. I’ve been to parties like that, and sometimes it’s well known the hosts won’t have enough and everyone brings some food and drink.
There’s a lot to take into account when taking the orders. How many people, how many of them are kids, how many of them are adults, not to be sexist but how many females vs males since does tend to make a difference, how many are (or are pretending to be) on a diet and, do you want leftovers or do you want to run out.
But that just sort of all happens in my head, I don’t usually ask all those questions and can often times just gather that information from the conversation. It’s usually something like “So, we have this platter that serves about 20 for $50 and this one that serves about 40 for $100, you said you have 27 people, which one would you like?”
This is where someone might say “well, it’s for a gift opening and I don’t think they’ll eat that much, lets go with the smaller one and if they run out, they run out”.
That’s bizarre. I have nothing to add except really, really bizarre.
I agree. The closest thing I’ve ever been to was a kid’s birthday where we dropped our kids off, and they were going to play games and eat pizza and candy. We were told to come get them in two hours “Or an hour and a half, if you want to join us for cake.” I wasn’t sure if that was a purely friendly gesture, or a way of getting a few extra adults there to corral the kids for the singing, and then the formal opening of presents, which is the best part for the birthday kid, but usually the hardest part for the rest of the kids to sit through.
It was darned good cake, BTW.
I’m sorry this happened to you. It sucks. It’s also one of the rudest things I ever heard of. The invitation should have read “Come at 5 o’clock. Not before, when all our real friends will be here and eat all the food, but come later anyway so we’ll get more presents.”
…Coworker (not friend) at her wedding “asked for donations for the honeymoon.” “Few people attend her parties.” The clues were there.
Like purpleclogs I would have called a cab or walked to the nearest bus line. And as a drinker who probably would have had a couple while sizing up the situation, I would have picked up my gifts on the way out.
If she ever invites you to something else I’d say “Are you kidding? I can stay home and disrespect myself. It’s cheaper and less inconvenient.”
Other coworkers aren’t going to start leaving you out of things because of it. In fact, you might start getting invitations to cooler events from people who respect your sense of self. And if not, what have you really lost?
Lesson One from Gracer’s Granny: “ALWAYS go to a party with a banana in your handbag.”
Lesson Two from Gracer’s Granny: After my grandfather died, my granny was lamenting that when wanting to leave a party, she wouldn’t be able to use my grandfather as an excuse to go home anymore. I reminded her of her dogs, and she perked right up. 
So Lesson Two is have an excuse to leave.
Monstro, I’m sorry you went to a party and it was such a horrible time, especially since you don’t go to parties often and I know you make an effort. They were really rude. This is not normal, and you should be fine at future parties. But…
Re: the staggering. True story about the typical Dutch birthday party: they stagger, and it is bad. Typically, the early afternoon will be family. All the chairs in the house are gathered and placed in a circle in the living room. Then everyone must sit down, and cake is eaten. In a circle. This is the most awkward thing ever to have happened on earth since the very first quif. Then the family leave and the friends come. If you are lucky you don’t have to sit in a circle. If you are very lucky there might be crisps and marshmallows.
This is 100% true. My SO and I have now agreed that if we get another invitation to something that seems like it could be like this we will chew off our own feet so we can get a hospital pass. I swear I am half-Dutch, but for the life of me…
(OK, just to stave off the Dutch people who object: it does seem to be particular to older generation non-urban working class people. But it is not acceptable party behaviour. Foreigners, beware of party invitations from Dutch people.)
Nothing original to add here, but agreeing this was bizarre and rude, and I’ve never encountered such a situation in all my life.
Ugh. Yes, the rules of a party goer:
Always eat beforehand
Drive alone
Bring your own beverage (surreptiously)
Bring a gift
And the most important of all…
Don’t go.
Except then we wouldn’t have these wonderful horrifying stories to entertain us. 
As usual, ya’ll have helped me to feel better.
gracer, that’s interesting about the cultural aspect. But these folks aren’t Dutch, so they don’t have that excuse going for them! 