Tips for Planning a Dinner Party
If you love having dinner parties or cooking, then you probably have your own secret formula to wow your friends with every time. If you’ve never hosted one before then here are some tips and tricks that you can use to help impress your guests.
Plan your menu in advance
Plan what you will serve your guests a few days in advance so that have lots of time to prepare and maybe even do a practice run of your dishes. Don’t forget to check if anyone who is coming has any specific dietary requirements.
If you’re having a theme for your party, then try and think of any ways that you might be able to incorporate it into the food you offer up.
Cook what you know
Cook the food that you know you can do well, rather than trying to impress people with something that you, or none your guests have heard of any way that easily could go wrong.
Think about a seating plan
Think long and hard about where you are going to ask your guests to sit at party. This might depend on the reasons that you’re having the party. If you are doing it to give all of your friends the chance to meet each other, then try and sit people together who have similar interests so that they have things to chat about.
Invest in some nice tableware
Taking the time to make your table look good can help give your guests a sense of how much time you have put into getting the evening ready, and it can also give them all something to talk about while you are in the kitchen cooking. Getting some nice crockery from somewhere like Viners can also be a nice way to enhance your table too.
For more advice on how to do this, read our article on dressing up your dining table.
Make things easy on yourself
Making sure that you are relaxed and having fun on the night is an important way of helping your guests to relax, as they may find this hard if you are wound up and stressed. Do as much of the prep as you can in advance before they all get there so that you do not have as much to think about and so you have more time to socialise.
