How To Plan The Perfect Dinner Party

Those of you that know me well, know I have a huge passion for planning and designing events.

I am always looking for an excuse to host a get together. My husband is always less than thrilled when I inform him of a new one on the calender. He knows how much work I put into them, and that means he will be doing some major cleaning and additions to the house the whole week leading up to the event!

None the less, they are always a success and we have such a great time with our loved ones.

The latest event I planned was 

a "Friends giving" this past Sunday.

Since the week of the holiday is always crazy, and the day of we spend most of our time in the car traveling from family to family, I thought it would be nice to have some of our friends over so we could relax and enjoy this time of year with them.

It was so nice, as we are 6 months pregnant,  two friends are newly engaged, one couple has an 8 month old beautiful little girl, and the other girls got to bring their new boyfriends around to meet us all for the first time! So we obviously all had lots of catching up to do.

With all of that being said, here is my take on how to plan the perfect dinner party.

1. Invitations.
I am a big believer in formal/informal invitations for any event. It makes it more special, and gets guest more excited. It also gives all the information of your event some place to live so that your guest aren't asking your 21 questions, a million times a day leading up to the main event! 

Here are the invites I sent out via email for this occasion. I used an app that is FREE called "Paperless Post". I have a feeling this will be my go to for many events in the future. I cropped the bottoms portion our to conceal our address, but I ended the invitation with "rsvp with a dish"

The app is amazing. It allows you to design your own invitation, add the guest list with their email address (or you even have the option of adding mailing address and it will send them out for you snail mail style, for a small fee). 

The best part about the app is once guest open their invite , they can click RSVP and send a message, so as I told you, at the bottom of this invitation I requested they RSVP with a dish..

So once everyone had done so, I could just click on that app and could pull up my menu and guest list at any time to refer back to! Genius right?

2. Menu.
This is probably a given with Thanksgiving.. but I informed them all I would make the turkey, stuffing, gravy & bread and requested they all bring a side dish or desert. 

Our menu ended up being delicious when it was completed. It consisted of all the fixings of my dishes, as well as green bean casserole, broccoli cheese & rice casserole, sweet potato casserole, a veggie tray,  mashed potatoes, macaroni salad, cranberry salad, pumpkin pie, apple pie, cheery pie, and a pinterest inspired dish I created called "apple nachos"! 

We were all in a food coma afterwards to say the least.

Don't forget to include drinks in your menu! My husband and I are not big drinkers anyways, and especially since I am pregnant I requested if they wanted something alcoholic, they should BYOB. However I supplied sweet tea, water, and apple cider. I even had an old bottle of wine that was a house warming gift I pulled out to go with our drinking station, since neither of us would be drinking it anytime soon. 

3. Seating.
We are no longer cramming people into a small apartment space, since we are now homeowners, however we did have to come up with a solution for seating since our current dining room table only seats 4 people, and we had invited 8. 

I used social media for this quick fix. I put up a status asking if anyone had a card table and chairs that I could borrow for the time being. Right away a few people graciously responding and I was able to snag one with 4 extra chairs!

Don't spend money where you don't have to! I always resort to borrowing first, mostly from my mother :) I mean hey, what else are they for!

 I was still in need of 2 extra chairs, luckily we had a couple laying around from an older dinning set we had before, so I used some of those.

4. Decor.
I am such a "theme" girl. I like to pick a theme and stick with it so everything has a cohesive look when its finished. 

Obviously it being for Thanksgiving I wanted to stick with the traditional corn, pine cones, and pumpkins. Now thanks to Halloween being over it was almost impossible to find pumpkins anywhere in the city, so I just used some fake pumpkins that I had for decoration around my house as accent pieces in the kitchen.

 My mother had found this old box of gold utensils that my grandmother left me, and I knew they would be perfect for this event. I used them as my inspiration and I went with a "gold" theme. I bought gold and white stripped straws for our drink station, and some gold and white ribbon to wrap the utensils in! I even got crafty and spray painted some pine cones gold!

5. Place Settings.
Most of my parties are more casual and don't require an actual place setting, but with it being a sit down dinner- this is a must! I kept it casual with an informal setting. I used my white dishes, and a white napkin as the backdrop to my silverware. 

I then used my gold spray painted pine cones to hold the name tags for the guest, so they knew where their seat was. This was the first time I actually did assigned seating, but with so many new couples, I wanted to make sure everyone was comfortable and not wandering where they were going to sit.

I then placed mason jars at the corner of every ones place settings, for drinks. (I have an excessive amount of these, that I use for parties and daily drinking glasses, thanks to my parents I basically grew up drinking out of them.)

The table itself was my kitchen table, and the borrowed card table pushed together covered with my Grandmothers orange linen tablecloth that she left my mom after she passed. I then used two burlap runners that I collected after a friends wedding I was in!

I used left over pine cones to fill a big glass bowl that I put in the center of the table, I then laid out some fake leaves I bought from the Dollar Store, and two corn husk's that my mother had given me to add to my fall decor.

It turned out pretty well, and I was very pleased. I had every intention of spray painting the leaves gold to go with my theme, but time and energy got away from me, so I left them as I bought them.

6. Serving Table.
I lined one of my counters with two more burlap runners, and a smaller chevron burlap runner I had and place a sequined pumpkin in the corner, and a flower arrangement I had been using all fall as the center piece on my normal dinning room table. I also added some big jars of candles for mood lighting.

When planning a dinner party you also want to take in to consideration your serving dishes. Luckily between by mom and I had everything I needed. I had a big white platter that I believe was my grandmothers as well, to serve the turkey on once it was cut. My mother lending me some casserole dishes for my stuffing and sweet potato casserole, and I used a white milk glass cake stand to serve my beer battered bread on.

You want to make sure this part looks presentable as well, and is easy to self serve. You would never want to place the turkey out, in the roasting pan it was cooked in and expect people to just tear away at it. 

I actually had my husband cut it down about an hour or two before everyone got here, and placed it back in the oven on low, to keep it warm until everyone was ready to eat.

Also on my serving table was a mason jar full of clean forks and spoons for desert. No one wants to have to do the dishes just to eat the 2nd course. Be prepared!

7. Favors.
What is a party, without party favors? These items can very. But I NEVER have an event without them. It shows your guest appreciation and thanks them for coming, and in this case cooking something as well! 

 I choose to bake something this time. I made mini loves of bread in all flavors, (pumpkin, banana nut, cranberry, and cinnamon swirl) and wrapped them in clear cellophane wrap (Like what you use for Easter baskets) and placed these cute little cards I found on Pinterest and was able to print for free & tied it with a little ribbon.

I am all about resorting to Pinterest when planning parties. Not only for inspiration, but they have HUNDREDS of free printables for just about any occasion imaginable.

8. Prep.
Do as much as you can the night leading up to your event. My mom came over to help me the night before. We set up the table completely.  I made all my mini loves, & main loaf of bread, and I prepped the turkey so that all I had to do they day of was put it in the oven, and make my side dishes. 

I set up my drinking station with everything, except for the drinks of course as I wanted them to chill all night in the fridge.

I even did some cleaning the night before so in the morning I only had the main big things left (sweeping the floors, cleaning & stocking the bathroom).

 One place you don't want to neglect is the bathroom. Make sure you have enough toilet paper, and that it is visible and guest don't have to go hunting for it. I keep about 3-4 extra rolls in a basket on the back of the toilet. I also keep a  basket of mints in there for them. It is always so nice to have a few around for them, especially with all the different foods.

9. Clean as you go.
I am very lucky that I have friends who are helpful. They did the dishes twice while they were here for Friends giving without me even asking. They said it was the least they could do to help. 

However most guest wont be a generous. Be sure to clean as you go. Serve everyone else desert and before you enjoy yours, do up some dishes really quick, collect trash, refill anything needed for the drink station. 

Then relax with your guest. I will often be cleaning and pick up while chit-chatting with everyone. They don't call it multi-tasking for nothing! It will make your night easier, when they have all come and gone and your left with the mess.



10. ENJOY!
At this point you have worked so hard, now try to enjoy it before it's gone!


Xoxo
Molly