on Thursday, April the ninth, at eight o’clock
Thirty-three Hamilton Place
The invitations are given in the name of husband and wife. A widow living with a grown-up son would add his name, as a widower would that of a daughter in society.
Dinner invitations may be written in the third person, or for an informal occasion in the first. Small sheets of perfectly plain white note-paper of the best quality, with envelopes to match, are always good form. In a democratic country crests are in questionable taste, although some persons use them, embossed in white. The address is often engraved in small and simple lettering at the top of the page.
In the gay season in a large city, invitations to a formal dinner are sent out two weeks or more beforehand. In Washington the guests are sometimes invited a month in advance. For an informal occasion a week or less suffices. Invitations by telephone are now extremely popular, but they have some decided disadvantages. The person invited, being suddenly held up at the point of a gun, as it were, is likely to forget some other engagement for the same day and hour, or she may feel constrained to accept when she would prefer to decline. As she has no written record of the invitation, it may slip her memory. Hence hostesses who are very exact send a note, in addition to speaking to their friends over the telephone. It is, of course, extremely convenient to do this when engagements must be made at short notice. A hostess desiring to arrange a dinner or other occasion in honor of a certain guest, may ascertain over the telephone whether he can come on a certain evening, and then invite other friends to meet him.
The answer to an invitation to dinner should be sent as promptly as possible, within twenty-four hours at the latest. As husband and wife are always invited together, except to a stag dinner, so both must either accept or send regrets. It is not good form for one to go without the other, unless to the house of a near relation or an intimate friend. An exception is sometimes made to this rule in the case of a married couple of widely divergent tastes. Thus a literary man who is fond of society may have a wife who does not like to dine out, or whose health does not permit her to do so. If he is a very agreeable and popular person, it soon comes to be understood among their friends that he will accept invitations while his wife cannot. Although this dispensation is occasionally granted to men and women of unusual charm and ability, the average citizen is expected to adhere strictly to the rule given above.
The answer to a dinner invitation must also be definite and exact. If Mrs. Jones is uncertain whether or not she or her husband will be able to attend the dinner, she must send regrets for both. The answer should correspond in form with the invitation. “Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Jones regret very much their inability to accept the kind invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Griswold for dinner on April eleventh,” or “regret extremely that a previous engagement prevents their accepting,” etc. The day and hour should be repeated in an acceptance, to guard against possible mistakes.
A dinner engagement must never be broken except in case of sickness or death. Should one fall ill or be obliged for any imperative reason to withdraw the acceptance of the invitation, the hostess should be notified at once in order that she may if possible fill the place left vacant. For men the proper costume for late dinner (at six o’clock or after) is regulation evening dress—i.e., black swallow-tail coat, with trousers to match, low-cut white waistcoat, white dress-shirt, white lawn tie, pumps or patent-leather shoes, and black socks. Some men, especially those of the older generation, still follow the earlier fashion which prescribed a black waistcoat. The latter is also worn with mourning costume. At stag dinners and small informal occasions the dinner-jacket replaces the swallow-tail coat and is accompanied by a plain black-silk tie. This must be freshly fastened whenever worn. A “made” tie of any sort is considered among men to be in direct violation of all rules of social decorum. We do not pretend to understand why, but it is one of the unalterable laws of masculine etiquette. A white waistcoat is never worn with a dinner-jacket. For a formal dinner the proper costume for women is a low-necked evening gown, with sleeves either very short or of the length required by the fashion prevailing at the moment. It is by no means necessary that the bodice should be extremely décolleté. Long gloves, white or delicately tinted, dress-slippers, and silk stockings complete the costume. The foot-gear may match the dress or it may be white or black. Ornaments may be worn in the hair, varying with the fashion of the day. Elderly women often substitute a dress cut out slightly at the neck, with elbow or transparent sleeves, for the regulation décolleté gown. Those who catch cold very easily have their dresses cut accordingly.
For an informal dinner the usual costume in America is of the sort just described. Young women select light colors as a rule. Velvets, heavy brocades, and similar materials appropriate for matrons are out of place in the toilette of young girls. Those who follow the English fashion wear décolleté costume whether they dine at home or abroad. The custom is by no means general in this country, however.
One should arrive at the hour named in the invitation or five minutes later. In the city it is a decided mistake to come earlier, as the hostess may not be ready to receive her friends. Doubtless she should be, but the fact remains that in the rush and hurry of town life she sometimes does not descend to the drawing-room until the last moment. Guests coming from a distance may find it difficult to calculate exactly the time required to make the trip to the house of the hostess. In this case, a lady arriving before the time would explain the matter to the person opening the door. She might say: “Please do not disturb Mrs. So-and-so. I know that I am too early, and will wait in the drawing-room until she is ready to receive her friends.” In the country, where people do not have so many engagements and where the means of communication are slower and less certain, guests often arrive a little before the hour named, thinking this better than to risk being late and so causing the hostess inconvenience.