Not yet! hehe

We are like you and do more casual entertaining; but so far, I have not had anyone bring a guest without letting me know. And no one has brought their pet. : )

PS - I agree, 6 is a good number! We rarely have large groups of people over.

Yes, it has happened to me, when people arrived at a seated luncheon with a couple of extra people— friends of their kids who just happened to be there when it was time to leave for our house. We already had ten and two more normally meant another leaf in the table, but there wasn’t time for that and I squeezed them in. DH and I were at the head and foot of the table and were fine, but the others were tightly packed and TBH I didn’t really care. I was astonished at thoughtlessness of it. If they had called and asked I would have been happy to have a few extra guests. I can only conclude that they did not know any better.

I haven’t had surprise pets, but I have had surprise guests for holiday meals.

One Thanksgiving, for 14, my invited friend finally arrived after we had all given up on her and sat down at the table. She arrived, with boyfriend. I had to scramble to move people down at the table, find a place setting, and a chair. I was out of china and unchipped dishes, and chairs: my friend got the chipped everyday dishes, and a stool.

We used to have a pretty big Christmas Eve, 25 people for dinner. One relative’s young adult kids always arrived with a couple of friends. Introduced by name only, not by relationship. Friend? Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Gender? Led me to some embarrasing moments. Although, one such guest did leap up from the table when he saw the Christmas tree fall and rescued it before it landed on anyone or anything!

How about the other way around? My mom and i gave a bridal shower for my niece. We invited her friends and her MIL to-be. MIL calls and asks can she bring her two sisters. Of course the answer is yes. zDining room table is all set with good china and silver. I answer the door and there is MIL with no sisters. i said Oh, are your sisters on the way? She answers no they’re not coming, I guess i should have told you.

Yeah, that would have been nice. We ate lunch with two empty settings. Moving the chairs etc would have been awkward at that point.

Anyway, its rude to bring an uninvited guest and especially rude to bring a dog..

I was hosting an afternoon party of women. About 16 people, one who bought her dog. A little dog who happened to be sick. She didn’t want it to be left at home alone because it was sick. Sick with nasty GI issues we all quickly found out.

One of the other guests reacted strongly, and firmly suggested that she get the little dog the heck out of maddielee’s house. After the little dog and woman left, I poured the other guest another glass of wine.

That is bizarre, Maddielee, and more than a little gross. 🤢

It was nasty and gross.

Because we had people coming over, I had taken our dog to our daughter’s for day. So I wouldn’t have a dog bothering people who may not want a lab’s head in their lap. Then she shows up with a sick animal.

"These are all dear people" No no they aren't. Both were terribly rude--I do have to think the second couple must have miss understood your invite. You were gracious and quick to act so deserve a pat on the back.

I have one sister who does this routinely, both bringing extra guests without asking, or arriving without the expected number of people in her entourage - or deciding last minute not to come at all. I like to set a nice table, and plan it based on the number of guests expected. I’ve never had a friend do this. It’s a pet peeve!

This happened to us 30 years ago at a really nice restaurant, on one of our first nights out after our second child was born. I was really looking forward to the evening, the meal, and the couple we were to have dinner with. They arrived...with their teenage son. This was a small restaurant with limited seating, and there was simply no way to add a 5th chair at the already small table.

It was difficult to get reservations at this place, and we had traveled quite a ways to get there. So not only did we have to leave, since they couldn't accommodate us, but we wound up at some Applebee's-like place where the food was terrible. I know it's supposed to be about the people and not the food, but I had been so looking forward to a well-made cocktail and an elegant meal and instead wound up with something like a badly made burger. I'm still peeved about it to this day!

It's never happened to me with a smaller / more intimate gathering. I have had people unexpectedly bring children when we invited a larger group for a party at our house. When that has happened before, we usually realize that it was probably an honest miscommunication between us and the guests. Though I personally consider it incredibly rude to bring any additional human or animal without discussing with the host.

I love my dog but I would never bring her to anyone's home without a conversation and most of the time I would not even consider asking. About the only time I will even ask is at my or my husband's immediate family's house and even then it's a conversation not an assumption.

I especially struggle when people bring children unexpectedly to my house because we are simply not set up for hosting children. People who have or at least have had children usually have furniture, decor, yards, that are designed for children running around playing, jumping on things like kids do. My house simply isn't set up for that. When we invite children over, we make certain to put away breakeables and host in a way that at least one of us can keep an eye on the kids to make certain we redirect them if they are getting into something they could damage.

I'm sorry to read that 3katz and others have experienced so many rude guests!

No I’ve not had either thing happen, but maybe it did to something casual thinking back about it with someone bringing a dog. We live in the country, so everyone thinks they can just bring doggo out to play. Back when we still had dogs, we never had to fence one in as they stayed right by or in our house. I cannot be responsible for yours that runs away, nor do we tolerate every dog in our home. People don’t get it.

My daughter-in-law’s parents currently have a small dog who has separation anxiety. We are friendly with them and they have visited our home in many occasions. I dread thinking about them coming again and the need to being this dog. It recently bit its dog-mom on the mouth if that tells you anything.

Bringing an extra guest by surprise to a sit-down dinner is just rude. Uou were very quick and gracious to fix the problem and enjoy the evening.

I had dinner planned for 2 couples. One called and said that expectantly. her parents came to town. Without hesitation, I included them.

Not sure how I would have felt if they showed up at the door.

Another a friend asked if her son could be included. He was a teen and he wound up watching a sport downstairs, which was perfectly fine. I understood her hesitation at the time about leaving him home.

I’ve never had unexpected guests show up at the door.

However, when I was a small child, an aunt used to drop in ( without calling, and she did not live nearby) with her husband and two sons right before dinner. My parents had to scramble making what food we had stretch for 4 more people.

Not one of my favorite people, she also found was to criticize us in order make her children look better.

3katz, you are very kind.

My MIL used to eat before coming to our house for a meal. She knew I had spent a lot of time preparing food and she would always say "oh, I'm not hungry, I just ate." Really? My kids noticed it pretty early on and couldn't believe it either. Also she never cooked or invited us over even though we lived 5 minutes away.

RNmom, it boggles my mind when people are intentionally hurtful, especially family.

My GF, her husband and 4 kids were invited for dinner, then her mother wanted to come. I said OK. But....the mother is competitive...you know...walking foot in front of the other to figure out how large my kitchen is!!!! Weird. Then GF declares loudly to her son "Don't eat the fruit!". Why I ask....she says it's fake....just staged. Uh....no....it's REAL FRUIT. So he picks a cherry out of the bowl, takes a vicious bite...and cherry juice squirts ALL over the white carpet. Then the husband starts doing fat jokes on his wife..."Don't put your hands in front of Denise...or she'll accidentally bite you!"

It was one of the worst dinner parties I've ever thrown....

Yes, my husband's family liked to "surprise us" when their out-of-area adult kids come for holiday dinner. Too many surprise guests last Christmas, we ran out of prime rib. Luckily we has plenty of other food. After the holiday, I chatted with the mom's of our surprise guests, made sure they knew that we love having everyone but when at all possible please let me know the number of surprise guests they are bringing, no names are necessary. Easter and 4th of July they let me know the numbers. I still always plan for plenty of extras, sometimes even the parents get a surprise or unexpected friends tag along. A bit of leftovers are also very nice to have.

Overall, I am so happy that we share the holidays with extended family and try not to stress to much on this, glad that they all feel welcome at our home.