It always sounds like a great idea when you think that you would like to throw a dinner party, but when it comes down to it, it can often turn out to be much more stressful than you ever thought it was going to be, even before anyone has arrived. There are, however, ways to ensure that your evening goes perfectly and everyone enjoys themselves, including you. Read on to find out more. 

Choose The Right People 

There is nothing worse than having people around your dining table who you don’t know very well or you don’t like or who don’t get on with other people who are there. Planning your guest list well in advance is the best way to ensure that whoever you invite are the right people. Choose friends who already know one another so that conversation doesn’t become awkward or stilted. If you do want to introduce two different friendship groups, then make sure that everyone has at least one or two things in common to make things easier on everyone. 

Get The Information 

Before you begin planning what you will cook, you’ll need to know what your guests’ likes and dislikes are. You’ll also need to know about their food intolerances and allergies too, or whether they are vegetarian or vegan. These important things have to be found out ahead of time to prevent any disasters occurring on the night. You will be busy creating the perfect meal, and the last thing you want is for a guest to inquire what the vegetarian option is when you haven’t thought of one. 

Cook What You Know 

When you’re thinking of great dishes to present to your guests, it can be extremely tempting to look up some new and fabulous recipes and try them out for the first time on your special night. However, this isn’t such a great idea when you think of all the stress that will bring you. It’s a much better idea to cook something you’ve cooked dozens of times before and that you know back to front. You may not think it’s very exciting, but if it’s your signature dish, then you can relax more – plus, your guests are sure to love it no matter what. If you do want to try something new, make sure it’s simple and try to practice it beforehand if you can.

Prepare Food In Advance

To make things even easier on yourself, look at what you can prepare in advance and get that ready the day before or on the morning of the event. With that in mind, you could try this tiramisu dessert. That way, you’ll be able to spend more time with your guests and less time in the kitchen getting the food ready. Try to avoid any food that has to be cooked to order like a steak, for example, and you don’t want to choose anything that needs constant attention like a risotto either. 

Make Sure You Have Everything Before You Need It 

When you know how many people are attending your dinner party, you need to ensure you have all the equipment you’re going to need. Do you have enough plates, glasses, tools to serve the food with, the correct number of dessert forks? You may not use these items every day, so you may not realize you don’t have quite the right number until you’re desperately searching through your kitchen drawers for it. Make sure everything you have is clean and ready to go, and if you don’t have enough buy more or borrow some if possible. 

Be Flexible 

Although it would be nice to think that everyone who intends to come will let you know about it, sometimes people just don’t. They forget, they think they already mentioned it, or they think that you will assume they’re on their way. Sometimes people will bring extra guests with them because they assumed it was a plus-one situation. It’s a good idea to make extra food and have extra cutlery to hand so that no one feels awkward and you don’t feel like a bad host for not having enough food for everyone. 

Clean Up As You Go

It might feel like a better idea to do all the cooking and then clean everything up, but if you clear the pots and pans once you’re done with them, you’ll have a lot more space to move about in, and you won’t feel ashamed if a guest pops their head into your kitchen because there won’t be any mess for them to see. 

 This also means that at the end of the evening, the only things left to wash and put away will be the plates, and that makes your job a lot easier.