DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am planning to invite my daughter’s in-laws to a formal dinner. I plan to host it the way my late almost-aristocratic mother would have done 60 years ago: with fine china, starched linens, good silver, flowers, the lot. I am partly (well, mainly) motivated by a few snobbish remarks dropped by my daughter’s father-in-law.
The thing is, I was raised to roll up my napkin after dinner and put it in my napkin ring, with my name engraved on it, for later use. But I cannot remember for the life of me whether guests should find a napkin ring provided if they’re only staying for one meal.
GENTLE READER: If this gentleman is as pretentious as you say, he may well believe, as many now do, that silver napkin rings add a formal touch to a table. And he would be wrong.
They do not belong at company meals.
Your mother used the napkin rings to lighten the load of the laundress (who, for all Miss Manners knows, may have been your mother herself). The family used their napkins at more than one meal, so it was necessary to distinguish whose was whose. You wouldn’t want to be stuck with your brother’s napkin after he wiped jam all over it.
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(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)
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