Dinner parties sound pretty easy to pull off. You just invite a bunch of people over to your house and prepare them a meal. Add some wine and a delicious dessert and, hopefully, they’ll enjoy themselves.
But as you know, dinner parties never follow a formula. Sometimes, they can turn out to be unexpectedly good, and other times, they fall completely flat.
The good news, though, is that you can often rig the odds in your favor. Check out these advanced hacks that work every time.
Sit Your Guests By Personality Type
Forget seating people who know each other together. Instead, sit your guests by personality type. Line up people who are likely to get along with each other and start a great conversation.
There are generally eight main personality types. For instance, charmers can be seated anywhere, though they work best when talking to introverts. Opinionators tend to stir things up, so they are best seated next to charmers or hosts and so on.
Get Rid Of Overhead Lighting
Unfortunately, overhead lighting is almost universally unflattering. It creates shadows on the face that make people look tired, old and out of sorts.
Instead, the best approach is to ensure that lights shine from multiple directions. You want to illuminate people evenly.
Make It More Personal
If you’re laying out place settings, look for ways to make it a little more personal. For instance, you could use name tags telling people where to sit. Or you could add ribbons around bouquets of herbs and so on. If you’re going the extra mile, you could even include a little gift for everyone in their place setting. Doing this provides a wonderful conversation starter and gets people chatting immediately.
Upgrade Your Furniture
While regular furniture will do the job, there’s nothing quite like the impression you create with a marble dining table and chairs. Improving the quality of your furniture allows you to better present yourself as a host and can elevate the dining experience tremendously.
Create Small Bites
At dinner parties, everyone has their own tastes and preferences. No two people are alike. That’s why getting everyone to sit down to a single large entrée is no longer standard practice. Instead, many hosts now prefer to make a selection of small bites, like tapas, and then allow their guests to munch on them how they choose.
It turns out that you can adopt a buffet-style approach for practically any cuisine. What’s more, it makes it more visually exciting. There’s nothing quite like walking into a dining room and seeing an entire spread.
Keep Table Setting To A Minimum
While fancy restaurants make a habit of elaborate table setting, it might put some guests off. People at dinner parties don’t want to have to read a manual to know which fork to use for a certain course. They just want it to be simple and straightforward. Thus, before you lay your table, think carefully about what equipment guests actually need to eat your menu.
