Dinner Table Etiquette - An Excellent Opportunity to Impress Others

Using your dinner table etiquette is a wonderful opportunity to show your charm, manners, and tact in dealing with people. 

Many websites about manners and etiquette will teach you how to eat, where to put your silverware, and other similar tips. We want to help you take this a step further. A much larger step ahead of others...

We want to give you those tips that will help you leave a lasting impression (a good impression of course) on those that you will be eating with. To that end, the ideas and thoughts we give you on this page are not focused on what to do to eat. Our ideas are based on getting yourself noticed without being overbearing or egotistical. In fact, our ideas are just the opposite...

Our ideas are focused on thinking of others. How about that for a novel idea? When you think of others, they will naturally think of you. 

Here is something else to think about: At a social function like a meal, how many other people present will be thinking of other people? None! That is why these tips will get you so far ahead. In a setting where people of thinking about their meal, how they eat, and how they act, you will be thinking of others. That is the beauty of these strategies! 

In reading some of these ideas, you may think that the ideas are "old school." You are correct! Many of them are things from the past. But, impressing others with manners and etiquette is a lost art. In order to regain this art, we need to take it back...

Dinner Table Etiquette Strategies

1. If you are going to bring a guest, make sure you ask the host first - Nothing will be a bigger source of frustration than bringing someone that was not invited. You will quickly leave a bad impression by bringing someone that was not expected. Good table manners say that you should ask first. 

2. Stand up when appropriate - When a lady needs to excuse herself from the table, the proper thing to do is to stand up as she is leaving the table and sit back down when she has left. Upon her arrival, stand up again for her. No one does this anymore and it is sure to make an impression. Standing up shows good dinner table etiquette. 

3. Send a thank you card to the host - This one is sure to win people over. Everyone loves to be thanked for what they do. Send a quick thank you note to the host and express that you had a good time, it shows good thank you note etiquette. This will be remembered and it will have quite a positive effect. Just make sure you send it in a timely manner. 

4. As always, ladies first - Make sure that all of the ladies are served first. You can also make a great impression making sure that everyone has their food prior to eating your own food. 

5. Don't forget to socialize - Meals like this are not only to eat a good meal, but it is also a social event. Do not be so focused on the meal that you forget the opportunity to engage in the conversation. 

These tips on dinner table etiquette are sure to make you stand out from the crowd. This is just one more way that you can use manners and etiquette to influence others.