An uninvited couple shows up to your party. What do you do?

Q. We had a New Year’s Eve party at our house and invited eight couples. One of the couples brought another couple who had been visiting them for the holidays. They unfortunately forgot to tell us they were bringing them. Their comment of “Hope you don’t mind that we brought ...” didn’t go very far with me but there wasn’t anything we could have said, was there?

I had made 16 entrees — one for each of our guests and one for my husband and me, 16 twice-baked potatoes, 16 special desserts. We had two large tables set with the two sets of china I have, place cards, charger plates, crystal, centerpieces, candles, and a little gift for each person preset on the tables. Everything looked beautiful. We had hired two young girls to serve so my husband and I could actually sit and dine with our friends. I was to be at one table to host and he at the other. My parents had agreed to split up to share the hosting job. Perfect, right??! Wrong!!

While our guests had cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in our closed-in porch, my husband and I had a panic sidebar in the kitchen on what to do with this sudden dilemma of two more guests. My parents came in and said they would just leave and go home and tell everyone they had never intended to stay for dinner. We wouldn’t agree to that at all. The other option, and the only option we felt, was for my husband and I to forego eating and become servers along with the two girls we hired.

Then came the issue of the place cards, table host changes and not wanting to split up one of the other couples. We decided to have my parents sit at the same table, one on each end, to be hosts. We decided to have our next-door neighbors host the second table, one at each end. Thus, we wouldn’t have to split up any of the couples. Sent my husband back to the guests as I made two more place cards. The only other problem was we didn’t have two more gifts. My parents insisted we use theirs and tell everyone they had received theirs at our Christmas dinner. We briefed the two servers to just serve the champagne, wine and water, and clear courses while we served the food courses.

In the end, it all worked out well except my husband and I wound up eating a fast bowl of cereal in the kitchen in between courses and drank a few sips of champagne from a regular glass rather than a beautiful stemmed crystal glass.

Some of our guests seemed shocked and uncomfortable at first that we weren’t sitting down to dine with them. The uninvited couple seemed oblivious to everything and the couple who brought them had red faces because I think they figured out a change had been made to accommodate their ignorance of bringing an uninvited couple with them.

My question is: Was there anything else we could have done? Was it considered rude of us not to sit to eat with our guests?

The next day the trouble-causing couple called and wanted to apologize, and started to go into a long explanation of how they just had to bring this couple with them, blah, blah, blah. I’m afraid I wasn’t very sympathetic and quickly excused myself to check something that was in the oven. If I had stayed on the phone, I am afraid I would have said something I would have later regretted, like “What in the world were you thinking?”

One other question: Let’s say this couple had called the day before our dinner and asked if they could bring another couple, could I have explained I had only prepared food for 16 guests?

A. Wow, you and your husband are certainly amazing, resilient, fast-thinking, fast-acting, gracious hosts. You definitely get an “A+” for problem solving and I don’t want you to think I am patronizing you because I am not.

Not allowing your parents to leave was definitely the right decision, as well as having your neighbors host the second table, and I am sure you pulled them aside before the dinner bell to tell them how much you would appreciate their doing this.

Not joining your guests at the table to actually dine with them, but to serve them instead, while very unusual, could actually be perceived as an elegant touch.

As to the appropriate response to the hypothetical question of the couple calling the day before asking if they could bring another couple with them, you would have had to tell them, “Oh, that would be wonderful what are their names and do they have any food allergies?’

At least you hopefully would have been able to prepare more food and change your seating charts, and get two more gifts prior to their arrival the next day.

It is certainly understandable why you weren’t ready to be “sweet as apple pie” the next day when you received their “little-too-late apology call.” Once again, you remained gracious to the extent possible under the circumstances.

Obviously, your host and hostess survival ratings went up in the New Year by at least three or four points each. Congratulations and Happy New Year!