How to Host a Great Party
Hosting a party at your home is often a stressful experience. But it doesn’t have to be! Follow Domestic CEO’s 4 easy tips to make sure both you and your guests have a fabulous time.
Everyone loves a party, right? It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t like attending parties, but hosting them…well, that’s a whole different animal. Hosting a party in your home can be stressful, so today we are going to focus on the 4 top tips to help you plan, create, and host an amazing event in your home. After all, as the host or hostess, you should have as much fun as your guests!
Sponsor: Audible.com, the Internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 100,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, non-fiction and periodicals. For a free audiobook of your choice, go to https://www.audiblepodcast.com/ceo
Tip #1: Pick a Theme
In college, just hearing about a party is enough to make us want to go. As we grow up and get busier, though, people may need a little more incentive to come to your event. After all, attending a party may involve expensive, time-consuming logistics, such as /relationships/etiquette-manners/proper-babysitting-etiquette, booking a car, buying a new outfit, and others, depending on your situation. Adding a fun, appealing theme to your party can be a great incentive. My friends are really competitive, so we tend to have contest-style parties. Some of our favorites in the past have been a Casserole Cook-Off Potluck, a Valentine’s Day Cupcake Contest, and a Micro-Beer Tasting Championship for Halloween.
A theme not only makes people want to come to your event, but it also gives them something to talk about. How many of us go out, only to get stuck talking about our work or our https://mightymommy.quickanddirtytips.com/ over and over again? But if someone shows up to your party with a kuchen like your grandma used to make, you can’t help but be curious as to why they know how to make authentic German pastries and conversation will naturally become more interesting. Even if you don’t go all out with a contest, just making your guests wear Hawaiian shirts or leis will get them into a different frame of mind and create more fun than normally would happen.
Tip #2: Build Excitement
After you have your theme, start to build excitement for your event. Step 1 is creating an online invite through a site like , https://www.punchbowl.com/, or even https://www.facebook.com/DomesticCEO. Most of these sites will allow you to customize the look and feel of your invite. Add pictures and be creative with your wording, tailoring it to your invitees. With my competitive friends, the trash-talking starts in the invite and doesn’t end until a winner is crowned. Start the excitement for your party with the first communication, and continue it through emails, text messages, and face to face communication. Even if it’s just a small get together, let your friends know that your place is the place to be!
Tip #3: Prepare!
With all the anticipation you are building around your party, you want to make sure you are prepared to back up the hype with a great event. Start by deciding what food and drink you’re going to serve. From there, you can start making lists to make sure you have all the ingredients, serving dishes, serving spoons, plates, and utensils for the night. I like to have my food be as low-maintenance as possible so I can spend more time with my guests and less time in the kitchen. By pre-assembling and even pre-cooking items a day in advance, you can give yourself much more time with your guests. I don’t recommend slaving over that lobster bisque while your friends enjoy themselves in another room.
Make sure your home is prepared for company as well. No one wants to party in a dirty house, so make sure to clean at least the areas that your company will be hanging out in. Check out my episode called /house-home/housekeeping/the-illusion-of-clean for tips on how to get your home looking fabulous without much cleaning at all. You may want to splurge on some party decorations, but if you don’t, simply removing any knickknacks and /house-home/housekeeping/how-to-organize-paperwork-part-2 will help your space feel open and welcoming.
Make sure you are well stocked up on supplies, too. Have more toilet paper, cups, and ice than you think you need. Running out of any of those items won’t end your party, but it will require you to make a quick run to the corner store in the middle of the festivities. And who wants that? Prevent this calamity from happening by stocking up before hand.
Tip #4: Set the Mood
Setting the atmosphere for your event is so much more than just putting up a few decorations. It really has to do with how you welcome people into your home. If you are frazzle-haired and running around like a chicken with its head cut off, you are going to set a stressed tone for your party. Make sure you personally are ready 30 minutes before your guests are scheduled to arrive. That way, even if someone shows up 15 minutes early, they aren’t catching you in your underwear or with rollers in your hair.
See also: /relationships/etiquette-manners/fashionably-late
Once you are all done up, then it’s time to turn on some mood music (depending on your theme) and put the finishing touches on the food and drinks. I like to have a few appetizers out when the first guests arrive, but I also like to have something in the oven to tempt my guests with yummy smells as they step in the door. And if by chance you have early arrivers, or you are just running behind, asking them to help you with these finishing touches can /business-career/public-speaking/how-to-start-a-conversation at that awkward time while you are waiting for others to arrive.
When you get to this point, the only thing left to do is dazzle your guests with your sparkling personality! Roam around, talk with each of your guests, and enjoy spending some quality time with everyone there. And remember, if you run out of something, a /house-home/entertaining/hosting-hints-how-handle-accidental-spills, or your garbage disposal backs up and floods your kitchen (all of which have happened during a party at our house), just keep calm and laugh about it. If you handle it with your usual panache, your friends will still think you are the hostess with the mostest.
If you’re looking for a few ideas on party themes, check out the boards on my Pinterest page. And if you have some great pictures of your own party set-ups, tweet them to me https://twitter.com/#!/thedomesticceo or post them on my https://www.facebook.com/DomesticCEO.
Until next time, I’m the https://domesticceo.quickanddirtytips.com/, helping you love your home.
Man in Hawaiian Shirt, Woman Making List and Dinner Party images courtesy of Shutterstock