where did they eat dinner at the party?

that definitely makes sense about Maria rushing leaving before they made it to dinner because georg did say that would wait for her. i think the idea that we never see a formal dining room makes sense because they would definitely need a space to accommodate many people if they wanted to host large dinner parties as well, anyway outside of hosting balls? therefore, the dining room we see would be the informal dining room, given their social class, georg's expectations, and with the amount of people they have in their family, they would need a rather large space for "informal" meals anyway. 

I think those guests were coming from exploring the upstairs and getting a view of the villa from the second floor because there were other people up there when we see that wide shot of guests entering the villa before the close of of elsa and georg greeting everyone. 

thank you so much for your response! this helped me a lot.  

Looking at the Floor Plans in the Artwork section, I assume the formal dining room looks out onto the lake, on the same side of the house as the saloon/sitting room/drawing room. It would have to be pretty big to take all those people sitting down, and would normally be placed somewhere with a pleasant outlook on the 'best side' of the house.

There was a thread a while back where we talked about the guests coming downstairs for the party, but as I have no idea where it is, I'll recap my thoughts here:frequently with large parties like that, guests coming from a long way away would stay at the villa or with friends of the family who lived nearby. So they would have arrived in the afternoon and been shown upstairs by Franz or Frau Schmidt, where they would have got ready in the early evening, then descended when the party began. So I think the people you see coming down the stairs are house guests.

As for Maria leaving, she had so few belongings I don't think it would take long at all for her to write a couple of lines to Georg, then throw a few things in to a bag and dash downstairs.

And I think it is such a clever irony that, when G and E are dancing, the orchestra is playing Edelweiss: even more excruciating for Maria if she catches sight of them!

indigoblue - okay, this explanation makes PERFECT sense. I've wondered about that for years and now I see the light!! 

Great story!

Even after the (seemingly) millions of times that I've seen this movie and analyzed the emotions and body language of this waltz and Maria's departure, I have for some reason never thought about how G & M would have felt about this particular song playing the background until a couple of days ago on this thread. Then your story starts with how Elsa feels, and I'm realizing that in my musing this week, I completely forgot about her feelings (so did Georg!).  So, lets start with her.  Her surprise that Maria left so easily is absolutely true. I love the part about her and Georg having an unspoken arrangement that they would be together but never have deep emotional connection, but that she's starting to actually fall in love with him (who wouldn't?). We need to bring this up in one of the Elsa threads because it's fascinating. She does seem to be falling for him much more than he is falling for her. I wonder if they really did have some sort of arrangement that allowed them to be together as a social match, but not emotionally involved? Or was she always hoping that he would some day fall madly in love with her? As for the song, it is kind of brilliant that the moment she is feeling that she finally set their relationship back on track, the memory of Georg singing to Maria is playing the background mocking her.  As for Georg, I like the comparison of how he lovingly indulged Agathe's desire to host parties, but felt tricked and trapped by Elsa's party. Very telling. His emotional turmoil in the difference in passion of the Laendler and Elsa's Edelweiss waltz is spot on. And I'm glad he feels guilty about the dismissive way he treated her after Max's dinner invitation. (I know we share an obsession about this scene) Oh, Maria! Of course she believes Elsa, and now the memories of Georg singing Edelweiss (to her) are ruined, with the grand way that it is now being played making her feel all the more out of place.  It doesn't matter that she doesn't actually see G & E dancing, the effect is still there, and maybe even more potently because I'm sure her imagination is running wild about how wrong she has been about everything.

Well done!