Dinner with my friends

Hosting a dinner party is a splendid way to bring your friends together for an evening of good food and good fun. Dinner parties can range from formal to cocktails, to relaxed and casual. They are also great for any occasion, whether it be a reunion between friends, a housewarming or an anniversary, With no costumes and no loud music, a dinner party is fun in the most straightforward way.

Preparing for the Dinner Party

The key to any successful dinner party is to pace yourself and start getting things moving in advance. Around a month to two weeks before the dinner party, decide on what kind of dinner party you’ll be having, if it’s going to be a formal affair or something more relaxed.

• Invitations. Send invitations three weeks or a week in advance, taking in mind your guests who may be living far away. Provide a phone number where your guests can call and RSVP, or an email address should they find it difficult to call. The invitation must also include the date and time of the party, if they have to bring anything to contribute to the party and the dress code. The invitation can be simple or colorful. If you have a color motif or a theme, it should reflect in the invitation’s design as well.
• Decide On the Menu. The main event of a dinner party is, of course, the dinner. Again, depending on how formal your party is, your menu can range from an elaborate one to a very casual one. An elaborate menu will entail a full-course dinner while a casual menu can even be entirely made up of food delivered to your house. Planning the menu can be very exciting, but you should always be realistic. If you’re an amateur when it comes to cooking and preparing dishes, it’s better that you stick to simple recipes.

Dinner invitation

Planning the menu

Follow a schedule

• Make Lists. Make an inventory of the things you’ll be needing, particularly what items you need to purchase from the grocery and if you have enough plates, napkins and other tableware for the corresponding number of guests.
• Follow a Schedule. Preparing for a dinner party can get pretty overwhelming, but not if you follow a well-paced schedule. For example, checking whether you have enough tableware for the dinner and buying non-perishable items can be done way ahead of schedule, while buying perishable items such as flowers and fresh fruit must be done a day or two before the party. You can also start cooking a day before the party, baking, marinading or making sauces. Be realistic with your scheduling plans. It’s good to start things in advance, especially if you are the only one executing the party.

Planning a schedule and doing things in advance may seem a little uptight and stressful, but on the contrary, following a schedule will save you a lot of time and trouble. It also makes sure that you don’t forget anything and there will be a higher chance that your dinner party will go smoothly.

Elegant Dinner Party Decorations

Clean out your house. You want to present your home in the best way possible, and cleaning out your house thoroughly is the first step in that direction. Replace curtains, throw pillow covers, and your furniture’s slip covers with fresh, new and clean ones. Throw out the garbage, and dust and polish all your surfaces. Make sure your toilets are also clean and equipped with soap, tissue and towels. (For more information, read the 10 tips to a cleaner home)

Polish all your good silver, launder your cloth napkins and wash your china, especially if they haven’t been used for a while. Fill your vases with fresh flowers. Make sure that all your appliances are functioning properly.

Simple dinner decorations

You can decorate your house using silver and gold balloons, streamers and banners. Put up Christmas lights, lanterns and even lamps for a more romantic glow for your surroundings. Candles are also a great way to provide warmth in your surroundings. You can put floating candles in shallow glass bowls with flowers for a really pretty. Candles in water make them less of a fire hazard, too!

For table setting, arrange your China, tableware, stemware, napkins and linen. Again, unless you’re making a point to make it casual, try to make the evening as casual as possible. Print your menu on cards assigned to each placement. Your centerpiece items must be low enough so that guests will be able to see each other’s faces fully.

Dinner Party Menu Ideas

Planning the dinner party menu is definitely the most fun and exciting part when it comes to preparing for the dinner party. Plan each course keeping in mind the texture of the food and how they complement each other. Again, you should also consider preparation time and try to prepare your menu items a day or two before the party, if possible.

If you’re having trouble deciding on what to serve for each course, you should also consider having a dinner menu based on specific cuisines. Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Chinese cuisines are among the many types of cooking and preparation are at your disposal.

Here are the menu courses that you should prepare for your dinner party:

• Appetizers. Serve appetizers before dinner and as a starter course. When your guests start arriving and mingling, it’s recommended that you have appetizers in your living room for them to chew on while socializing. Small sandwiches, hors d’oeuvres and vegetable sticks with dip make for great appetizers. Same thing goes with crackers with pate, cheese or caviar.
• Salad. Traditionally, salad is the first course in a formal dinner, but since you’re not exactly in a five-star hotel, you can nix this idea altogether. Salads can be served alongside the main course, or after, depending on what is more convenient for you. Simple salads go best with the main course, and make sure your salads are pleasing to the eye. Make them colorful by adding carrots, tomatoes, radishes or red pepper. Separate the dressing from the salad to give your guests the option of putting as little or as much as they want.

Delicious appetizers

Colorful salads

Yummy tarts

• Main Course. The main course typically consists of one big filling dish accompanied with side dishes, but that is no longer the case these days. It’s better if you serve an alternative to standard meat and potatoes. Having a seafood main course alongside your meat ensures that your vegetarian friends can dig in as heartily into their meal as well as your meat-lover friends.
• Dessert. Preparing the appetizers, salad and the main course can be quite a handful, so don’t feel guilty if you decided to buy your dessert from a shop. Individual pies and tarts look cute, and their small sizes ensure that there’s room for dessert in full tummies. Serving fruit slices is a healthy and refreshing way to clear the palate too. Of course, chocolate and sweets will be hard to resist for anyone with a sweet tooth. Boxes of sweets are also a great giveaway and souvenirs to end a sweet party.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to make your dinner party as polished and elegant as it could be, but if not, don’t stress! It’s a get-together between friends, not a state dinner. Who knows, maybe you can all get a laugh about what fork goes with what course or what’s the difference between a wine goblet and a water goblet.

Dinner Party Games and Activities

After a filling meal, you can opt to have a few games and activities with your guests to liven up the evening. It’s also a good way to wake up people with a food-induced sleepiness. Here are some appropriate games for a dinner party:

• Charades. Shake off the sleepiness with a rousing round of Charades. Pick topics from movies, pop culture or even history. Write them down on slips of paper names, places or even things. Each team will have an It who will try to convey what’s written down using bodily actions. If the time runs out and there are still no correct guesses, the rival team will have a chance to steal a point. This can go as long as you wish.
• Murder Mystery Games. Many Hollywood movies portray the classic murder mystery following a posh dinner party. Solve a murder mystery of your very own by purchasing a murder mystery game before the party, which includes clues and a script. You can also download these games online.
• Board Games. When you’ve just eaten a full meal, sometimes you don’t really feel like doing active games. You have an array of board games to choose from to entertain your guests, with Monopoly, Risk and Trivial Pursuit among them. (Choose from the list of the Top ten board games for a fun Saturday night)

Check out this dinner party video.

The best way to wrap up a dinner party? With coffee or other drinks, while catching up and spending time with friends. You can also ask them to sign a guest book with their contact details, so you’ll be sure to keep in touch with them. Have a good time, and a yummy dinner!