How to Organize & Plan a Dinner Party

Need help planning a dinner party? Don't know where to start or what to serve? Well check out my Article on How To Organize & Plan a Dinner Party here on eHow.com.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Friends
• A Plan
• Dinnerware
• Wine
• Beer
• Seafood
• Patience

1. 
   The Menu

   Often a big part of the planning problem is figuring out where to start in the process. So I recommend that the first thing you should be concerned with is the menu.

2. 
   Friends For Dinner

   The second thing is once you've figured out the menu is then to start planning the guest list. Having alot of friends is one thing, but getting them into a room for conversation and dinner can be very difficult to manage.

3. 
   Preparing food

   Give yourself plenty of time to prepare and it may be a good idea to actually start preparing some of the dishes the night before. Often meat or some seafood tastes better if you give them time to marinate the night before.

4. 
   Dining Party

   Give people ample time to stroll in during the party. Trying to get everyone to arrive at the same time will only stress you out and that will rub off on your guests.

5. 
   Party Time

   Remember to take a breath and enjoy having friends over. And get a drink and enjoy the showering of praise as everything was a success.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't be pressured to invite everyone of your friends, sometimes a small group is better than a large noisy one
• Try to stay relaxed, so breath easy
• Guests will offer to help, so use them to help with keeping glasses full or setting the table
• Clean up dishes and put stuff away as you go, if you do that as you go you'll have less to clean up when your finally done
• Don't bring out your best glassware for a large party
• Its a bummer to run out of ice, so make sure you get extra bags
• Don't let your guests drink and drive
• Don't forget to turn off the oven

Resources

• Martha

[veroslist]

on 5/14/2009 you can also get an event planner to help us!Event Premiere, Inc catered our luncheon in New York. They helped us find the venue, while also making sure our needs were met. The event was a great success.Claire

[alienangel555]

on 8/2/2008 great ideas and tips. 5 stars

[kaseysviewblog]

on 7/17/2008 Good article.

[Heart-C]

on 7/15/2008 Hey, I really can relate to this, after learning so much from helping execute dinner parties for college students who go to this youth group center. 5*

[Elitchka]

on 11/29/2007 Very good article. I like the idea about small group of guests: preferable with common interests to talk about.