How to Host the Most Stylish Dinner Party

Let's face it: there's nothing like a dinner party for adding a real sense of occasion to getting together, which is a luxury few of us have been able to enjoy lately. Plus, it’s just loads of fun to have a chinwag with some of the people you most love and value in life – whether you’re hosting a dinner party to coincide with a house move, celebrate a milestone, or simply for the joy of it.

Dinner party hosting, though, can be a daunting prospect. You might be scared of making a faux pas with your food, music or decor choices, or the people you invite. There’s just so much scope for things to go wrong.    

So, let’s banish that negativity and help ensure every attendee remembers this occasion for the fondest reasons, with some of our favourite dinner party ideas.

Be Mindful About Who You Invite

The task of picking out the right people to invite can understandably be a source of worry if you aren’t accustomed to hosting dinner parties, but it doesn’t need to be. A good tip here is to not just invite any random combination of relatives, friends and/or colleagues, but instead aim for a well-balanced mix of personalities. In any case, if you stick to about four to six people, the process of planning everything else for them won’t be quite so overwhelming.

Put Together a Suitable Menu

While catering to everyone’s personal preferences is obviously important, ensuring you don’t do anything risky for your guests’ health is infinitely more so. That’s why you should take the time to establish in advance what each attendee’s dietary requirements are, as you also won’t want any awkwardness caused by a guest telling you at the last minute they can’t eat a particular food due to their religion, an intolerance or allergy. Asking your guests about these matters ahead of the dinner party may also dictate whether you go for a larger main meal, or instead a series of smaller dishes.

Roll out Your Very Best Tableware

You might understandably be protective of the most ‘sophisticated’ crockery and cutlery you have in your cupboards; you may have never thought there was a sufficiently special or fancy occasion to justify using them. Well, particularly in wake of the coronavirus crisis, we reckon your next dinner party is easily special enough to qualify! Your guests are likely to greatly appreciate the visual signal of your appreciation of them provided by your most refined and prestigious-looking cutlery and crockery. And if you’re lacking tableware items your guests will be truly wooed by, don’t forget that our online store stocks everything from red wine glasses and Champagne flutes to enchanting drinks trays and coasters.  

Infuse Your Dining Space with Glamour

Many of our dining rooms might have been neglected in recent times, with some of them having even been turned into makeshift work-from-home spaces. So, now is the time to restore some of that refinement of yesteryear. Plump up the cushions, coordinate classy and tasteful decor elsewhere in the room, and dress your dining table to stun. And if you’re preparing a suitable dining space more-or-less from scratch, don’t forget that we also offer complete dining table and chair sets. 

Set Up an At-Home Bar

At a time when it’s still often far from predictable whether bars will be open, why not play the bartender and mixologist at home, for your guests’ refreshment? Here at Arighi Bianchi, we stock all of the essentials for making your dream home bar possible to serve as a focal point at your dinner party – including this enchanting Velvet Bar and the most stylish bar stools and chairs, ranging from the Ottowa Barstool to the Cooper Bar Chair. We’re also an excellent source of bar tables like the Blake Rectangular Bar Table and Birdcage Bar Table. 

Play Tasteful Background Music

The right music does so much to add to the atmosphere of a dinner party. The best choice of music genre is likely to be something like light jazz; ideal for adding energy to the room, without distracting anyone from their conversations with fellow guests. Arrange your music player and speakers in a part of the room where the music won’t be too loud or overbearing for anyone, but will still be heard. And if you want to be able to leave the music playing instead of being forced to play DJ for much of the evening whenever the music stops, a Spotify playlist or CD compilation may be a better choice than a vinyl record on the turntable! 

Everything from the basics of dinner party table setting to sending out the invitations and rustling up the meals your guests will love can be intimidating – particularly if organising such an event isn’t exactly something you do every day. 

Hopefully, the above pointers will help make you ‘the’ authority on dinner parties among your circle of friends – and here at Arighi Bianchi, we’re always pleased to offer the furniture and homeware to make your occasion an unforgettable one.