ETIQUETTE Host with the most believes in fare play

Etiquette experts pan the BYO events where guests have to cart in everything .
HARTFORD COURANT
Greetings, and ho-ho-ho! You are cordially invited to join us for a festive party Dec. 14. We will provide a cozy fire and plenty of mixers. You bring your favorite wine or holiday hooch. Please call Judy to tell her what type of appetizer you're bringing (we don't want to end up with five cheese balls). We'd also like to sample your Christmas cookies, so bring your best so we can all share. Oh, and we'll be decorating our tree, so come with a special ornament. We can't wait to see you!
P.S. Chairs. We need chairs. And anyone who's driving by a convenience store, feel free to pick up a couple of bags of ice!
Entertaining guidelines
Talk to any frequent partygoer, and you might hear grumblings about soirees that are becoming more Salvation Army than swank. Maybe it's the economy. Maybe it's the twenty- and thirtysomethings who are still partying like the good-old dorm-room days (tap a keg, open a bag of Doritos). Maybe it's just that we've forgotten the etiquette of entertaining.
Dinner and cocktail parties seem to be morphing into blatant BYO affairs where hosts and hostesses expect invitees to pitch in and where guests anticipate having to supply the party goods. It's gotten to the point where festivities once marked by host-provided abundance are now resembling a church potluck dinner.
Is this any way to entertain, especially during the holidays? Party experts say no, as one might expect them to.
While there are no statistics on whether BYO is on the rise, those who attend parties (and write about the manners that govern them) say that "bring your own" isn't the best way to go.
"I find it discomforting when you have to bring something," said Richard Ott, an interior designer in West Hartford, Conn., who disdains BYO parties. "I wouldn't call it cheap; it's just not a very elegant way to give a party."
BYO pitfalls
And yet the BYO party thrives in some of today's social circles. Sure, there are situations in which BYO is acceptable: dinner parties among relatives or good friends, or casual cocktail parties among co-workers. And there are plenty of lovely parties where you wouldn't dream of having to bring anything (corporate affairs, fund-raisers, fetes thrown by the rich and well connected).
Still, there are many hosts who think nothing of asking their guests to bring courses or libations. Such behavior has created party guests who simply assume they are going to be required to tote food and drink to a party if they accept an invitation.
In the eyes of etiquette expert Charlotte Ford, this is plain wrong. "If you want to entertain, to have a dinner party, you have made the decision to invite people into your home. To ask them to bring something is a little bit of an insult," said Ford, the best-selling author of "21st Century Etiquette." "If you are a guest, you are going to someone's home because your host is making the effort to entertain you. It takes away from it being a special evening if you're required to bring something."
Ford acknowledges that there are generations of party-givers and -goers for whom BYO is neither an insult nor a shocking obligation.
BYO "is certainly a new phenomenon for me," she said. "I understand that the younger generation is doing more of that. Certainly it is less expensive for younger people to have a dinner party that is not formal and to get their guests to participate and help out. I don't know how I feel about that. I can't see myself doing it, but I can understand the concept."
One of the consequences of a BYO party is that there is rarely enough food and drink. Elegance and uniformity are instantly shot by BYO.
Disapproval
Judith Re, an etiquette expert and author who teaches etiquette classes at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Boston, does not approve of the slim pickings afforded by the BYO party.
"Quite honestly, if I walk into a cocktail party like that, I say hello, chitchat for a little bit and then leave. If they're not taking the initiative to take care of their guests, then it's clear they didn't want you to stay very long," she said.
Re, like Ford, believes the hosts should provide -- simple as that. But she knows that the stingy party and the BYO affair exist. Her advice is to avoid them or deal with them.
"Some people are just cheap party-givers, and we know who they are," she said. "They're the ones we've joked that you're going to have to eat a sandwich before you go to their house."