18 Easy Tips to make your Dinner party an Occasion to Remember

When faced with the prospect of hosting a dinner party, there are just too many examples on social media of people being bad hosts, not having accommodated guests properly, and generally making a mess of a lot of stuff. Well, all that is in the past. Read on and find out how you can become the host your dinner party deserves and make the affair an occasion to remember fondly on for your dinner guests.

Planning the Dinner Party

Invitations

Who doesn’t like a fancily-designed invitation to a dinner party? Send out fabulous invitations to your potential guests about two to three weeks in advance. Make note of guests who’d like to bring plus ones. A day or two before the party, contact your guests again to confirm their presence at the dinner party.

Food & Drinks

Prepare the required food and drink in advance. If you want to save some time, cook everything hours before the party and have it ready to heat up and serve.

Clean the venue

The party atmosphere needs to be inviting. The first step to making that happen is to make sure the place is very clean.

Décor in the Party room

Décor can brighten up the room and make every part of your home look appealing. You can make your room’s décor focused on the theme you want. Some of the little things you can add to your room to spruce up the atmosphere are

Candles

Aromatics and ambiance make up a room. Having fragrant candles that also provide visual interest can make your guests feel welcomed. 

Furniture and furnishings

Unless you’re thinking of having your guests stand the whole time before dinner, it’s a great idea to invest some time into making your furniture look inviting. Orient and align your sofas, chairs, and coffee tables. Good furniture layouts can help sustain conversations and can bring people together easily.

Check this out to make your furniture look amazing: 17 Home Styling Tips to Elevate your Furniture

Lights

You can use different types of lighting setups to set the mood of your dinner party. You can use fairy lights, hanging lanterns, tealight candles, décor lamps with nice-looking lampshades, etc.

Making your Dinner Party Memorable

Ambient Music

Use a speaker to put on some ambient music for the room. Having some ambient music on really fills in the spaces between conversations. Good music that people can take interest in also makes for an amazing conversation starter.

Start Conversations

Introduce people in different circles or your life to each other. Making connections and finding friends and life-long relationships is one of the best things you can do at a dinner party. And hey, they have you to credit to their first meeting.

Have a Potluck

Inform your guests beforehand and request them to bring something to add to a shared potluck. Having a shared potluck means everyone who comes to the party partakes in something that the collective has brought, and everyone gets to share a piece of their world with the collective.

Party Games

Party games are fun to participate in before dinnertime to make the setting fun and ease everyone into a place of comfort. Make sure to know what kind of party games work for the people you’ve invited.

Setting the Dinner table

When it gets to dinnertime, the core section of the party starts. With people having a good experience so far pre-dinner, it is important to maintain people’s moods at a high level. 

Before the Meal

Have some basic elements of the dinner table set up before the party. Get a neat tablecloth to cover the dinner table appropriately. Tablemats can be used to make the individual dining area look interesting. Use plates and cutlery in colors that contrast and stand out against the tablecloth.

Check this out and get amazing looking kitchenware: The Ultimate Guide to Ceramic Kitchenware

During the meal

Seat your guests all at once and make sure everyone is ready to start dinner. The food needs to be served to the guests one course at a time. Warm up your food and plate up the finished dishes into their plates.

Bring the food in to the dining room one by one. If you are confident enough in your balance and waitering ability, bring two dishes in at a time. If you’re using a shared food or finger food basket, make sure to arrange the food in the basket neatly in a pretty shape.

Once all the food for the course is brought in, seat yourself with your party guests and enjoy the food.

Make sure you don’t give your guests too much to eat as they might start feeling uncomfortable and you don’t want that. Also make sure there is enough food to go around. No one should feel left out at any time, especially at the dinner table.

After each course, clear away any empty dishes and refill any glasses that need to be refilled. 

What to do After the Party

Make sure to end the party appropriately. Once everyone left, make sure to clear away plates. Also, clear away any rubbish or confetti or any other party messes that occur. Put the rubbish in trash bags and take them out to the trash bins outside your home. Make sure to recycle your trash and separate your rubbish into different types of waste.

It’s important to have sustainability and environmental conservation in mind when clearing up after the party. You can also give away any food without wasting it. Give away the extra food to food shelters, elder care homes, and orphanages.

And That's It!

That’s all there is to hosting your own dinner party! Take a deep breath, lay down, and get that sleep you deserve. We’d love to hear from you about your party so comment down below on what happened at your dinner party.