I once hosted a dinner party where I had two guests with some serious food restrictions - one was vegan and the other didn't eat red meat... steak and fish were our dinner. Now I always serve family style with a variety of food groups - so there is something for everyone. Always ask your guests if they have any allergies.
If you organise a dinner party, and two guests cancel, it is still a dinner party: you still get to eat dinner.
If the guests want to wrest the check away from the host, because the host is also the guest of honor, then the guest who volunteers has to cover the whole thing. A guest can't volunteer -all- of the guests to pay for the host/honoree.
Like when I host a party. I hope my guests get along. But if not, how interesting!
She's sent the crows out to blind the guests coming for dinner!" What?" She's BLINDING THE GUESTS COMING FOR DINNER!" Well, that's one way to avoid having to dust, I suppose.
I love to have a dinner party. I love to have people over. I like the feeling it creates in my home - having guests laughing and telling their stories - and I put a lot of thought into it. I plan my menu kind of depending on whatever mood I'm in.
I like to think of myself as the host at a party, and, if everybody is having a good time, so much the better.
I aspire to be a good dinner party host.
The rule for hospitality and Irish "help," is, to have the same dinner every day throughout the year. At last, Mrs. O'Shaughnessylearns to cook it to a nicety, the host learns to carve it, and the guests are well served.
My dream dinner party guests would be Ethel Kennedy, Truman Capote and Hunter S. Thompson.
When we're discussing who to invite to a dinner party, my wife Chaz and I sometimes use the shorthand, 'good value for money,' which indicates guests expected to be entertaining.
I mean, I can cook, but I'd get very nervous having my food being judged by dinner guests.
If I host something, even if it's just dinner at my house, I like the event to move. So that means cocktails in the family room, and then moving outside and having appetizers on the patio, and then moving to dinner at the dining table. It's just the idea of the event being curated to every little detail.
A photographer went to a socialite party in New York. As he entered the front door, the host said 'I love your pictures - they're wonderful; you must have a fantastic camera.' He said nothing until dinner was finished, then: 'That was a wonderful dinner; you must have a terrific stove.
Somewhere in the back of their minds, hosts and guests alike know that the dinner party is a source of untold irritation, and that even the dullest evening spent watching television is preferable.
Planning a dinner party in a way that you're actually capable of getting it done without panicking is important. It's bad hospitality for the host to be freaked out.