How To Be The PERFECT Guest 🧳 ｜｜ You'll be invited back again and again!
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Summary
In this episode, I talk about how to be a great guest and give some tips and tricks for being a good hostess. Being a good guest doesn't necessarily come naturally to people, it's something you have to learn on the job!
Transcript
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Hello beautiful ladies and welcome to today's video where we're going to be talking about
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So a couple of weeks ago I did a video on how to be a great hostess and I thought I would follow
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up that video with how to be a great guest. Now if you've ever stayed at somebody's house it can
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be a little bit tricky figuring out how to navigate how to be a great guest not be in the way
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and just make the whole experience pleasant for everyone so I thought I would share some of my
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tips and tricks for how to be the perfect guest that people feel comfortable inviting over and
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over again. Now here I'm primarily talking about being an overnight guest so if you're staying
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over at a friend's or with a family member I'm not really talking about how to be a great dinner
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guest but I can throw in some tips and tricks here and there about that too. So let's get into it.
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Now most of my advice for being a good guest in somebody's house falls under the category of being
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clean. So a lot of it is just different ways that you can help the hostess by cleaning up after
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yourself so they don't have a huge mess to take care of when you leave and it's always good to
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kind of have an idea of what that entails. Now what I will say is that for myself I didn't do a lot of
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overnight stays with friends and family when I was growing up so I really didn't know all of these
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tips and tricks to be a good guest. I wasn't the best guest at people's houses because I really didn't
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know and it wasn't until I stayed with my husband's parents quite a bit that I learned all of
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this stuff so don't feel bad if you haven't done this before because I definitely wasn't the best
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guest up until the past couple of years. So being a good guest doesn't necessarily come innately to
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people it's something you kind of have to learn which is why I really wanted to share this with
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you because I didn't know it I kind of had to learn on the job and luckily I have wonderful in-laws so
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my mother-in-law was wonderful about teaching me how to be a good guest and how to be a good hostess
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but it wasn't necessarily something that I knew just off the bat. So the first thing to keep in mind is just to
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clean up after yourself. So let's take the example of staying with your in-laws. If you're at their
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house and you're able to go into their kitchen make food and it's just kind of flexible you're allowed
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to go into the kitchen and do all of that don't leave things out put everything away or if you're
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going to use dishes put them in the sink or in the dishwasher. Don't necessarily leave things just
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out willy-nilly don't leave your belongings willy-nilly everywhere just so that the hostess doesn't
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constantly feel like she has to pick up after you so just kind of keep things in their place maybe keep
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everything in your room also it'll make things easier for when you leave you won't have to be
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looking everywhere for your stuff it'll just all be contained in your bedroom. Another thing you
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should definitely be doing is making the bed. Every day you get up you should make the bed. Now it's not
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that the hostess is necessarily going to be popping her head into your bedroom because most of the time
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that's not happening but there's something really nice and important about keeping that bed made so that
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if accidentally you do leave your door open or something like that or if she needs to get something from
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that room or put something in there for you it's not a mess when she goes in there it feels like
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you're taking care of the hostess's house and of her things so just making your bed keeping your room
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somewhat clean even though it is your room will just make everything nicer and easier and make the
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hostess feel like you respect her space. Now this one is something that you can definitely keep in mind
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even as a dinner guest but it's also important for if you're staying at someone's house help with the
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dishes. Make sure that you are always at the ready to help wash the dishes because dishes as we all
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know is a terrible chore it's not fun and if there's extra people in the house there's going to be
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extra dishes too so leaving that all for the hostess really isn't very nice. Now a lot of hostesses may
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not ask you to help but if you go out of your way to say I'd really love to help I'm going to go out of
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my way to do this for you or even just doing it before she makes her right to the sink of course
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don't invade her space make sure that it's all very respectful but make it known that you are
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happy to help that it's not something that's a burden on you that you're really there and you
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understand that this is a big ask to ask someone to wash so many extra dishes when you're staying
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there so just make sure that you're constantly washing the dishes that you're putting them in
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the dishwasher and if you're at someone's house for dinner you can put your stuff in the sink and
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then put it in the dishwasher too of course ask their permission make sure that you're not in their
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space and that it's all okay but you absolutely should try and help if you can because it's a very
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nice thing for you to do so that the hostess doesn't have more work to do next up is offer
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to help set the table this is true again if you go for dinner or if you're just staying at someone's
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house if you guys are all doing dinner together make sure you offer to help to set the table
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help make dinner do whatever you can to make the hostesses life easier just make sure that you're
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constantly there recognizing that you can make the whole experience so much easier by not really
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invading the space and making it feel like you are a stranger there but more that you're there and
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you're willing to help and of course when you're visiting someone make sure that you take enough
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space now the hostess may not tell you that she wants you to have some space alone but i will tell
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you from experience having that little bit of time alone and separate will make sure that there's
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not a ton of tension building up where you never have alone time alone time is kind of essential
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for everybody even if people don't recognize it so just taking those moments alone and taking
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that time so that you're not in each other's faces constantly will make everything a lot easier
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now when you arrive at the hostess's home make sure that you bring a gift now this can be for
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dinner or for staying at someone's house if you're coming for dinner make sure to ask if you can bring
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a side dish a dessert a wine some sort of thing to take some burden off of the hostess again and of
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course you can always bring something extra you can bring something nice for the house a dish or
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whatever or you can just bring wine and dessert whatever you want to bring you definitely should it'll just
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be a nice show of oh we're at somebody else's house i'm a good guest and i really want to respect
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their space and that they invite us into it and then of course if you're visiting somebody's house
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for a few nights bring a gift for them as well in that case so you'd want to bring maybe a bowl
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again you could always bring a bottle of wine anything that's almost like a housewarming gift but
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you can also get something that's very tailored to the person you're staying with if it's someone
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that you love and you know and is a good friend you can always give them something that's a little bit
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more tailored for them like a book or a notebook or something that just means a lot to them do that
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or let's say you have a friend who's really good at gardening maybe bringing them a new plant things
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like that are really meaningful and people will really enjoy it now when you leave there's a very
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important step of stripping your bed and if you can putting those sheets in the laundry now you don't
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necessarily have to do that because some hostesses aren't comfortable with you going into their laundry
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room but if you get permission it would be so nice for you to at least throw your sheets
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into the washer because if you don't make it into the dryer that's okay but stripping the bed making
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sure that the hostess can make the bed for the next guest that they have over makes everything a
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lot easier and it's very nice and it also just takes that step away of having to clean up the big mess
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after guests come so anything you can do to limit that mess so that having guests is a much more
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enjoyable experience is fantastic and of course make sure you take off the pillowcases too now another nice
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thing you can offer to do is to make dinner when my husband and i went to my in-laws house we actually
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had a big talk with the whole family because everybody was staying in the same house for a while
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and my mother-in-law said okay we're all going to take turns and we're all going to cook dinner and
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i thought that was a great idea it took some burden off of her it was a fun experience for us
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each to take a night cooking and kind of experiment and kind of see who cooked and what they made and
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it's a fun kind of interesting addition to the family vacation but even if your hostess doesn't
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say okay we're each going to take a night and cook dinner maybe offer to cook dinner if you're
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staying there for an extended amount of time even if you're there for four days maybe ask if one night
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you could cook dinner just take some of the burden off and it's just a nice thing to do last but not
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least don't forget to leave a thank you note you always want to make sure that your hostess feels very
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loved and that she knows that you're grateful that she gave you the space to stay and that you guys enjoyed
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your time together because maybe she saves those thank you notes or something like that and it's
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just a nice gesture so don't forget to leave a note maybe on the bed or just hand it to her as you're
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leaving and just make the whole event really nice so that's my advice for how to be a really good guest
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at somebody's house i think it's a good skill to be good at being at someone's house so that they want
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to invite you back because again you're in somebody's space so you want to make sure that you're being
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the best version of that and i think it's a nice way to show that you are classic so let me know in the
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comments below what you guys think about being a good guest how to be a better guest at somebody's
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house what you should do so that your hostess has a little bit of the burden taken off of her i'd love
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to hear your guys's thoughts thank you guys so much for watching today's video please subscribe to
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