I threw my first dinner party this past weekend and I’m quite pleased with the turnout. I got wind that some family and friends from out of town were coming for a visit, and since my partner’s birthday was the same weekend of their visit, I thought it would fun to have a dinner party. That’s not to say that I haven’t hosted parties before, but those were casual pizza nights. What made this one different was in reference to planning the meal. I wanted the meal to be tasty and festive without spending hours in the kitchen laboring over the stove. As it turned out, everything was delicious with little to no leftovers. Below was the dinner party menu for the evening.
Dinner Party Details
Since there had more people than I could seat, I borrowed a table and some chairs from my parent’s house. As much as I thought about using place cards, I opted not to use them. I thought it would be funner for people to just sit wherever they felt comfortable. My apartment has an open floor plan, so I loved seeing the ladies chatting by the fireplace with a glass of wine in hand, and the guys catching up casually sipping Scotch on the rug.
Before everyone came over, I was so preoccupied with how the food would taste that it wasn’t until after that I realized what makes a great dinner party is the company you keep. Having great food and drinks are definitely a bonus.
As I was taking everyone’s dinner plates to the dishwasher I was thinking about how well the evening was going – and we hadn’t even had dessert yet. I was so thankful to have friends and family around having good conversations and sharing laughs. And I thought to myself, isn’t that what it’s all about? It’s not about having fancy flower arrangements or place cards. It’s about having people you care about be part of your life. Those other things are cool, but they don’t really matter. And they certainly don’t have any lasting effect on a dinner party either.
My friend showing all of us a magic trick. We were dumbfounded!
I suppose that was me realizing this year I need to work on recognizing what’s most important. So with that, cheers to the beginning of a New Year!