Throwing a dinner party forces you to answer a lot of tough questions, such as the following:
“How is it that I’m 29 years old and don’t own silverware?”
“What if my one female friend is busy that night?”
“Did I properly hide all my pornography?”
It’s a lot to consider, I know. But serving food to your friends while pretending that the majority of your furniture didn’t come from IKEA is a rite of passage that every young professional should try at least once. It lets the world know you’re no longer a carefree college kid drinking shots of tequila for no reason. No, you’ve become a gainfully employed adult who has to schedule his or her fun weeks in advance. And you know what else adults do? Worry about their friends silently judging them. The mistakes you make at your first dinner party could will haunt you for the rest of your entertaining life.
Terrified? Good. You should be. If you don’t follow these basic rules of dinner-party etiquette, you’ll spend the next 30 years filling your home with weirdos from work and that guy from high school who always asks whether or not “that hot Nickelodeon actress is 18 yet.”
The Invite
Do: Send an invitation with all the poignant details.
Don’t: Make it three paragraphs long with elaborate instructions.
Definitely Don’t: Make said instructions rhyme like a Dr. Seuss poem.
Guests
Do: Invite people who will probably get along.
Don’t: Invite people who will probably hate each other, because you think it’ll be funny.
Definitely Don’t: Invite people who already hate each other, because you know it’ll be funny.
Preparing Your Home
Do: Remove things from your medicine cabinet that you might not want people to see.
Don’t: Just put them in a drawer under the sink.
Definitely Don’t: Put it in a box marked “Stuff I don’t want you to see.”
Preparing for The Meal
Do: Buy fancy cloth napkins from a nice store.
Don’t: Try to return them the next day.
Definitely Don’t: Reuse them as a wedding gift when the store refuses to accept them.
Greeting Guests
Do: Greet guests as they come through the door.
Don’t: Get upset if they didn’t bring something.
Definitely Don’t: Kick them out and ask them to return with a decent bottle of wine.
Choosing the Menu
Do: Have filling options for vegetarians.
Don’t: Have shitty options for vegetarians.
Definitely Don’t: Segregate the vegetarians from the other, normal guests who aren’t huge inconveniences.
Styling by Joanna Andreoni