Making Etiquette Easy: Adult Birthday Dinners

Image from www.portlandcakegoddess.com

While we may have traded in the days of face-painting and jump-houses to rightfully celebrate our birthdays, we haven’t stopped creatively celebrating them into our adult years. But sometimes the colors and crayons seemed so much simpler. Nowadays we have to figure out if we can bring gifts, who’s paying, and what’s expected of us. Here are a few birthday party tips to keep in mind:

• No Gifts means No Gifts: If you read on an invitation that the honored guest requests no gifts, do not bring one. No matter how you feel about coming empty-handed, it will be much more uncomfortable for the host, the honored guest and the rest of the party who correctly abided by the instructions. You can always make a donation to their favorite charity and write that message inside their birthday card.
• If they don’t want a Party, don’t have one: Sure, you may be a party-planner extraordinaire, but the last thing you want to do is go against the wishes of the person you are trying to respect.
• Ageless Invitations: Typically, unless it’s a mile marker invitation that the honored guest agrees to ‘fess’ up to, leave the age off of the invitation. A lot of women and men prefer not to publicize their age on party invitations.
• Who Pays for What: Always take your cue from the invitations. If the honoree has sent out an invitation and invited you to join them for dinner, it is proper to let them pay. If they simply indicated a meeting point for a gathering, it is likely that you will be paying for your own meal and then chipping in for the birthday man/woman.
• Most importantly, have fun while celebrating another year with friends and family.

Making Etiquette Easy,

Susan K. Medina