We’ve Got a Dinner Party to Plan!
We are having our first Dinner Party on November 25th! Thats two months away and we’ve got lots of planning to do. First rule of planning a Dinner Party is …….. to lay out a plan (duh).When planning for the party keep in mind that this is in essence a full production. I believe that a Dinner Party should be a complete ‘EXPERIENCE’. Therefore, good planning is essential to the ‘Experience’. Click here to download a FREE printable for your own Dinner Party PLAN!
Guest List
Its important to establish early on, who is on the guest list for your party. Why? Because all the other components of the plan should be centered around the audience/guests. The party theme, menu and decor, those should all be determined by whom you are entertaining. For example if you were hosting a dinner party for vegans your menu would not include meat, likewise if you were hosting a party for heavy wine drinkers, you wouldn’t serve soft drinks with dinner. In both those examples the party would be an absolute disaster!
For this Dinner Party, I am inviting 7 of my best girlfriends. They are all around the same age, all like to have fun, none of them have any special dietary requirements, and they love love love to get dressed up for an occasion. So I am going to have some fun with this one! I think I’m going with a classy edgy feel.
Party Theme- SPANISH GUITAR
The theme for this dinner party was inspired by the beautiful long stem red wine glasses in the picture to the left. Aren’t they GORGEOUS!! For some reason they scream Spanish Guitar when I look at them. Let me give you the quick story about these glasses… A friend of mines sent me screen shot of a facebook post by Exclusive Home (one of my favorite home stores, Hamilton, Bermuda) one Thursday evening. They were having a two day warehouse sale at a location close by. It just so happens, I was off on that Friday, and so I got up early and ran out hoping to find a moderately priced clock for the wall in my living room. I got to the sale and saw everything but the clock. I did my best to stay focused and then I spotted these beautiful glasses. OMG I just had to have them. Turns out they had eight of them and guess what? They were $1 each!! How’s that for a deal?
Table Decor
Now that we have our theme, inspired by those beautiful red glasses , we can start to build our table decor around those colours. At this point I am thinking for a colour scheme we will go with red, white, black and a touch of gold. To complete the table we will need a table cloth, runner, place mats and chargers, napkins, placeholders and a few other items. Over the next few weeks, I will be on the road searching for little bits and bob’s to complete the table decor for this Dinner Party.
What’s on the Menu?
Since we are doing a Spanish theme, it makes sense to include some Spanish cuisine to the mix.
HOT & COLD ‘TAPAS”
Gazpacho
Stuffed mushrooms
Main Course
Spicy Seafood Paella
Dessert
Coconut Flan
Wine Pairing
Nothing finishes off a well prepared menu like the perfect wine pairing. This menu calls for a special selection of wines made in Spain. I like to at least get two different wines. Usually one that compliments the appetizers and one that compliments the main course. For this dinner I think I will look for a white wine to compliment the first course and a nice light red wine to compliment our main course.
‘Add Ons’
‘Adds ons’ are those little extras we add to dinner just to give it to that little extra flair. Sort of like atmosphere enhancers. These are things like personalized place settings, take away dessert boxes, Menu’s, lighting and background music.
Since my girlfriends get super excited about anything personalized, I think I am definitely going to personalized seating arrangements using their names. They are also the type that love to take a theme to the next level , I’m sure that when they get the invitations, they will show up in outfits that go with the theme (gotta love them lol), therefore, I am going to go online and find some Spanish music using the Spanish Guitar. Music is always a good way to set the tone of a party.
Stay tuned, over the next few weeks we are going to be pulling all the components of this perfect Dinner Party together!! I am going to share all the details with you.
