How to Plan a Dinner Party for 50

Series Summary

Planning a party can be a daunting task. There are many details to account for, like desserts, decorations, cocktails, menus and entertainment. Most importantly, planning a party requires tying all of the individual aspects together into a cohesive theme. Themed parties offer a chance for the host or hostess to personalize their event with something special and unique. In this free series of videos on event planning, an event coordinator discusses several party-planning ideas. Throw a dinner party for 50 guests with plenty of room for walking around and mingling. Host a cocktail party, and stock up the bar with mixers, drink dictionaries and garnishes. For a successful party, whether it be outdoor, indoor, for adults or for children, consult these helpful party planning tips.

Video Transcript

"So you've decided to plan a dinner party for fifty guests in your home and you're wondering where to begin. Hi I'm Jessica Meiczinger and I've been planning events for years now and today I'm going to tell you a little bit on where to start and give you some tidbits on how to throw a dinner party for fifty guests in your home. First of all you want to take into consideration the space that you have whether you want to do long tables for your guests or round tables. I suggest removing all your furniture from the room and putting it the garage or a storage space that way you know, it provides ample room for walking around and the guest being able to mingle. For your menu you can do something a little informal such as a buffet or you can do something a little more fancier and go ahead and do your plated dinner. Your can do a course dinner, you know, three to five courses, you know, is sufficient. And you want to make sure you're you know, if you're doing that you want to make sure you have place cards for the guests as well as your place settings and glassware down before the guests arrive. I always suggest doing a centerpiece on all the tables so that way it just adds you know, a little elegance to the rest of your evening. As far as beverages go there's a couple of different options. You can just stick to your simple beer and wine, you can have the guests you know, serve themselves, you can have you know, a wine pairing with each course if you're doing a plated dinner. If you want to go ahead and do a bar I suggest setting up your you know, your counter or if you have a bar in your own home. Make sure you have the appropriate glassware set out like your you know, your champagne, fruit rocks glasses, highballs, wine glasses, water glasses. Make sure you have your basic liquors on hand such as your rums, your whiskeys, vodka, tequila, gin. If you want to do cordials with deserts you know, make sure you have a few of those on hand as well such as chambord, franjelica, amaretto. And then for entertainment you can either go into having a live band like a little jazz trio, you can have just some CDs playing or what. Now days people what people like to do is just take their iPods and create a play list, and just plug it into their speaker dock. And it's great you don't even have to mess with anything you just press play and that's it for the rest of the evening. So those are just some helpful tips on how to throw a dinner party for fifty guests."