DEAR MISS MANNERS: As a U.S. government employee, I often take official delegations to foreign countries. While in these countries, my group sometimes hosts receptions where we pay for the food and drink and the meeting place.

I recently encountered a situation where the U.S. embassy in Country X attempted to dictate the dress for the reception as well as its duration. This was not a country with which I am unfamiliar, as we have hosted the same type of reception there for many years.

The embassy eventually dropped its attempts to control our reception, but I feel compelled to ask your counsel: Can the embassy do this? The invitees at the reception were a combination of local business people and government officials. I should also add that I told the embassy that they could invite some people if it would be to their advantage to do so.

Do the normal rules apply here, or are they suspended when we work overseas and with the government?

GENTLE READER: Dicate dress? Are we talking about a ban on flip-flops and T-shirts with anti-American slogans? Or a requirement that the ladies cover all but their eyes?

Probably neither, but Miss Manners knows better than to take a position on dress codes until she knows what they are and when they apply. She has received too many letters on the subject from teenagers who are indignant about the injury to their civil rights when they are not permitted to attend school displaying the body parts of which they are most proud.

Certainly a United States embassy can insist that people entering it not be dressed in such a way as to undermine the dignity of the venue. For that matter, so can any American restaurant or boardwalk souvenir shop that puts up a sign saying "No shirt, no shoes, no service."

But, of course, what specifically meets the criteria and what does not is subject to wide interpretation and, we hope, peaceful and polite negotiation. That you were able to have the code removed suggests that you took this option successfully.

The particular code you were originally given may well have been unreasonable. The mere existence of a dress code is not.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My fiance and I are both in our early 20s, eagerly awaiting our wedding date. We have made a decision to wait until our wedding night before "going all the way."

We both come from moral families that uphold traditional views on sex and marriage. Knowing my future in-laws' views on such matters, should they have the right to question our intentions or the physical part of our relationship? Is it really any of their business?

GENTLE READER: No, but they will anyway. Miss Manners recommends blushing, looking down and mumbling, "I'm sorry, but I was brought up never to mention such things." Tears and running from the room would help.

Your fiance will have a harder time, since they brought him up, but he can plead that discussing that would be a violation of the old-fashioned modesty that he treasures in you.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: We have dinner parties and BBQs at our home several times a year. We usually cook most of the food, and we ?have several friends who offer to bring dishes.

?Recently, some guests have taken to stopping at the ?grocery store and picking up packaged food. We ?strongly prefer that only homemade food be served in ?our home. We realize this is considered old fashioned, ?but it is our personal preference.

I have not said ?anything to my guests for fear of appearing ?ungracious. What is the best way to handle the ?situation, short of banning guests from bringing food ?altogether?

GENTLE READER: Sorry, but there is no polite way to say, "Bring me a higher quality of food" or "You were supposed to put some actual work into this."

Mind you, Miss Manners is in total sympathy with your desire to control what you serve your guests in your own house. But she is also sympathetic with dinner guests who no longer feel that they can enjoy a night out without working for it first or that they can even travel to a party without a container of food sloshing around on their laps.

Both problems can easily be solved: You serve only home-cooked food in your home; and you make it clear that they don't have to cook or shop for you. (Some will do so anyway, but you must be equally firm when you thank them, in saying that you will enjoy that later.)

But if you still insist on not banning contributions to your dinner, you are stuck with serving them, eating them and pretending to like them.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Which of the following would be the more correct to say after I perform a wedding ceremony?

1. "It is now my pleasure to introduce for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Robert and Dr. Doris Smith."

2. "It is now my pleasure to introduce for the first time, Mr. Robert and Dr. Doris Smith."

3. "It is now my pleasure to introduce for the first time, Dr. Doris and Mr. Robert Smith."

GENTLE READER: The first is certainly the most arresting, as it sounds as if you married a threesome. But Miss Manners is afraid that she doesn't care for the others, either. With the names separated, one can't help noticing that Mr. Smith has been Mr. Smith all along (or at least since he became old enough to graduate from being Master Smith), and there is no first time about it.

Perhaps the time has come to drop this little announcement, which always struck Miss Manners as more suitable to show business than to a religious ceremony.

She supposes you could say "the Smiths" or "Dr. Smith and her husband" or "Doris and Robert Smith," but these all sound forced. And anyway, what are you going to do about the newly married Dorothy Jones and Roland Smith?

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a business acquaintance who, after meeting her husband, became a vegetarian, and is now a vegan. They are so happy and in love with their world they proselytize their food choices and practically insult those who are comfortable with their own eating habits.

As annoying as this is, my concern is that they would like to host the annual company event at their home. When I entertain at home, I provide a range of food and libation so as to cover everyone's dietary restrictions.

But I know that they will serve only vegan foods, no sodas, and food that many in the larger group don't necessarily enjoy, along with lots of alcohol, which is amusing given their health concerns. They will not allow anything other than vegan foods in their home, which is their right.

Of course, knowing this upfront, I will eat before I go, and nibble on their offerings. Even so, there is a feeling among the workers that these two are incredibly rude and controlling.

They are more senior in the company, so everyone will go along. However, since the party is for the employees, it seems unfair that at a party that is meant to show appreciation, everyone will be forced to eat what the hosts like, versus the standard buffet choices.

GENTLE READER: That people who go around insulting others over their food choices are rude is beyond dispute. Whether they are "controlling," which is to say assuming illegitimate authority over others, is a more complicated question.

As you acknowledge, they may serve what they like in their own house. They may also choose the location of a party that they are giving. So if this couple is senior enough to be throwing and sponsoring the annual party, the only polite protest their prospective guests can make is to decline their invitations. If everyone expressed polite regret at being busy the night of the event, perhaps the hosts would understand that it was not working as a show of appreciation.

It is an entirely different matter if the event is actually given by the company at which they and the other prospective guests are employees. Employees may then make the point to whoever is in higher charge that the couple's house is an unsuitable venue because of its food restrictions.

This is not the time to deal with their rudeness. It should be phrased as it would be if a popular employee had wanted to host the party in a house that was too small to hold the number of people expected -- with gratitude for the offer and regret that it would not work.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I recently dined out with a companion who spoke rudely to one of the waitstaff, demanding that he move a neighboring (empty) table away from us, even using a curse word. I was too stunned to intervene at the moment, but, feeling badly, I approached the worker later and apologized for my companion's behavior. Should I have reacted at the moment of attack, and if so, how?

GENTLE READER: You didn't want to insult your friend, either, Miss Manners understands, richly as he deserved it. So it could have been to him that you said, "Why, Dwight, that's not like you. I hope nothing's the matter."

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