Your Guide to Hosting the Ultimate Dinner Party

So you’ve spent some time on social media and noticed that everyone and their dog is hosting a fabulous dinner party. We’re right there with you! If you’re left feeling inspired to create your own, we have developed a guide to bring that vision to life.

Hosting may feel like a big commitment to plan and prepare but if you’re anything like us, you will have so much fun with it!

It’s no secret that the food is an important part of the evening but what makes a dinner party memorable is the atmosphere, conversations and people you bring together. So, here’s all you need to know to be both a thoughtful and fabulous host.

Curate The Menu

As foodies, naturally we want the menu to be the focal point of the night, so it’s important to plan accordingly! One way that allows your dinner to be both memorable and easy to plan, is choosing a theme. You can have fun with your favourite cuisine or theme your dishes around a current event. For example, with everyone currently tuned in to the Olympics, how about ‘a night in Paris’?

A Spiced Orange and White Wine Apertif on arrival before tucking in to Chicken Liver Pâté with Walnut and Caper Salsa. Then wow your guests with a Twice Cooked Duck with Cherry and Red Wine Sauce as the main and have fun with dessert by whipping up our Banana and Rum Crepes with Caramel Ice Cream.

If you’re handling most of the cooking on your own, the simplest way to prepare is by choosing dishes you can make in advance or those that improve over time like braises, curries, and soups.

Have Fun with the Space

You can make a fabulous meal for friends any day of the week, but what makes a dinner party special is the way you bring everything together. Candlesticks, flowers, curated playlists, fun glassware, the right wines, a centrepiece for the table… these all add to the overall atmosphere.

Social media apps are your best-friends for making this happen! We start with Pinterest and create a mood-board, bringing the vision to life through photo inspiration.

And don’t underestimate the power of music and the effect it can have on a room. We love using Spotify to curate our own playlists or let others do the work for us by discovering those made by other users.

Prioritise Feeling Confident

Amongst the cooking and preparation, we often leave getting ourselves ready until the last minute. However, we find that putting the same energy into our outfit, hair and makeup, allows us to enter the night with that extra bit of confidence.

There’s no need to squeeze in a trip to the salon as we’ve just learnt how to achieve the same blowout look with GHD’s Duet Blowdry, a 2-in-1 Hair Dryer Brush. Once you’re fresh out of the shower, you can effortlessly transform your wet hair into a luxuriously smooth, voluminous blow dry finish with little to no heat damage, 3x more volume, no frizz and 50% more shine.

It's the perfect tool for achieving a glamourous look at home, allowing you to work the room with confidence!

Set-up a Drinks Station

We’re all about leaving the frantic energy at the door, which means making each guest a drink on arrival whilst entertaining others AND managing everything happening in the kitchen is a no. A fabulous workaround that also doubles as a fun styling opportunity is putting together a drinks station!

Have fun with it by matching the station to the overall vibe of your evening – whether it be a collection of your friend's favourite wines or all the ingredients they need to shake up a fun cocktail.

Cherish the Moments

While creating the food, styling your space and looking the part are fun, you organise a dinner party to bring the people you love together, so make sure you slow down and enjoy it! Fill the night with laughter, snap some photos and let us know how you go.