It’s your turn to host a grand dinner party and you feel overwhelmed with the amount of food and entertainment you need to prepare and organise. Arranging any dinner party takes some preparation and occasional and seasonal parties are much the same, but with an added ingredient of the pressure of having fun.

Here are a few great tips on how to create the perfect atmosphere:

Choose a colour

Colour will set a mood and should be used as a backdrop to the day. This colour will be most prominent in decorating the table. For example, pink and red is the colour you see most often during Valentines and you could drape your dining table with a red table cloth, or if you don’t want it too overpowering, then use this colour when buying napkins and decorations.

Table Decorations

You can also buy small table confetti to scatter around the table. These are less than a pound each and a couple of packs are sufficient to decorate a large table. Remember not to forget any table activity items and party poppers. Choose table interactive activities which the guests can try a hand at to avoid any awkward silences.

Entertainment

Making your guests laugh and enjoy themselves will make them feel more at ease and create a light hearted atmosphere for yourself too. Get the family and friends involved with a task for each person to do. Encourage children to get involved too by designing the place settings and let them choose where people should sit. If kids feel more involved then they are more likely to spend time at the table and have something to talk about. When the guests arrive you could encourage the children to mingle with them by showing their contributions towards the dinner party.

When everyone is seated at the table or having a fantastic buffet service which Heriot Catering can help you with, have games that can bridge the generation gap amongst your guests such as charades or writing down open ended questions. For example, “if you could afford it, what would be your dream holiday?”  While they play, you could excuse yourself to complete the last touches to the meal and bring it to the serving table.

When the main meal has been cleared, allow the guests some time to chat or carry on with the games before serving dessert. You could also look at how you can be creative in bringing out the dessert or serving it. For example, if you have a Birthday cake then you could place some sparklers on it and ask someone to dim the lights when you bring it to the table. You have probably seen that before, but it does wonders to set the mood. Certain small touches can bring a wow factor to any party whether dinner or lunch and create a grand finale to the perfect party or celebration.When guests are having a great time because you’ve got them all together for a lovely meal, to play games and be involved in conversations, they are more likely to carry on the party beyond the meal. This can be a fun time for the host as you will feel more relaxed and get into the celebration and party mood knowing that all the hard work was a success.

We would love to hear your thoughts and experience on organising a dinner party. Have you got any fantastic tips on creating the perfect party atmosphere? Please comment below ~ Tony Arens, Heriot Catering

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