Throwing a Fancy Party PART ONE

As a Real Adult, I'm constantly throwing very fancy shin-digs where I use fine china and crystal and highly polished silver. Fresh flowers abound, candles are lit, my dress is freshly pressed, and all of the food is hot and presented with only mere moments spent in the kitchen.

Okay, that's a HUGE lie. But I'd like you all to know that sometimes it's good to be fancy and impress people and I'm going to tell you how to do it.

This is merely Part 1 of 3. Setting the mood, drinks, and entertainment.

SETTING THE MOOD

First clean. Like Breaking Bad meth lab clean. Do this 3 days before the party. The day of, sweep all your floors, clean up the front porch, put some potpourri and a fresh hand towel in the bathroom, do a quick dusting of everything, set up your buffet table (minus the food), place your little bar station, Febreeze your furniture, and arrange any extra chairs you've pulled out. Make yourself a playlist and have the sound system ready.

If you're going to do flowers, send out a helper to get them in the morning, or when someone asks what they can bring say "whatever flowers look best for the cheapest". Personally, I like the look of carnations with no filler, baby's breath packed up really dense, or long branches of pussywillow (lol) or forsythia. Other easy decor includes pretty bowls filled with nuts and other snacks, tea lights/candles/lanterns, containers filled with fruit, or depending on how festive you feel, crepe paper and balloons (THEY'RE CLASSICS). As always, a consult with Martha Stewart will do you a world of good. 

Those paper flowers would look gorgeous hung up over the bar or buffet. If you keep the colors neutral, you can bust these babies out for multiple occasions, or hang them up over your dining table and keep them there because you're cool like that.

This would take about 3 seconds to put together, and you can grab pretty plates at the thrift store. Fill with coffee beans instead of the kidney beans though. It's prettier and everyone loves coffee.

Imagine those bowls of flowers scattered randomly throughout your party space. Stunning, easy, and uses fewer flowers than large arrangements.

Right before people start arriving, set out food, drinks, and light those candles, and change your clothes. Obviously, you've been prepping the entire day in sweatpants and no one needs to see that.


DRINKS

You're having a party, and as host, you really want to make sure everyone has food and drink. Setting out food means people will help themselves to food, but you don't want to spend all night pouring and refilling drinks.

Easiest solution: Set up a bar. You can set this up in the main party space, the kitchen, or across from the buffet.

You'll need:

Beer (put some bottles on ice, and put a bottle opener next to it)

Wine (a white and a red and open fresh ones as needed)

Rum

Tequila

Vodka

Gin

Whiskey

Soda (coke, diet coke, tonic, seltzer, ginger ale and some Red Bull)

Juice (orange, pineapple, cranberry, lemon, and lime)

Water

Grenadine

Simple syrup

Garnishes (lemon and lime wedges, olives, cherries, swizzle sticks, straws)

Ice bucket (one or two, depending on the size. Also you can get these for like $5 at a thrift store)

List of cocktail recipes

Cups

Wine glasses

Now I can see this is really elaborate, but depending on the size of the party and how fancy you want to be, this will IMPRESS. No one is disappointed by a well-stocked liquor cabinet. Also, for those who don't drink, they'll be free to make themselves a mock-tail and not have to suffer through "Oh you're just having water?! Why? Oh I'll just go make you a martini" and then have to explain to a complete stranger that they're on meds/preggo/breastfeeding/in AA. They'll just have a seltzer with lime and no one will ask them questions.

This bar cart from Crate and Barrel is to die for. Register for it like now. Put the booze on top and the glasses on the bottom and you're good to go. Or troll your local antique stores for one.

A similar bar cart in action

If you don't want to do the whole set up, do beer, wine, and a special cocktail or punch and serve it in a pitcher, bowl, or fancy dispenser of your choosing.


ENTERTAINMENT

This depends on the kind of party you want to have. Since Hubs is still in training, most of the parties we go to are just college parties, and the entertainment tends to involve beer pong. 

If sport-drinking isn't exactly what you had in mind for your party, let that shine through with your playlist. Less Carly Rae Jepson, more Frank Sinatra. Make a playlist on Spotify or Pandora and let the music take care of itself. You don't want to spend half your evening freaking out with your iPod.

Activities for smaller crowds include Apples to Apples (a card game... google it) or it's much less politically correct step-sibling, Cards Against Humanity. You could get physical and do charades or pictionary (both of which I happen to love). Quelf is a fun, yet super random game that's like the partying cousin of Trivial Pursuit. You could also get a video game version of Jeopardy and impress everyone with the fact that you can name all the Canadian provinces. Honestly, I consider any and all games to be investments. Buy them. If you have a party of all couples, play The Newlywed Game! It's actually super fun and you can find rules and questions online.

You need this.

Go old school and try Twister, Truth Or Dare, Hide and Go Seek, or Simon Says. These are all especially entertaining after a few strong cocktails. 

I've never been to a party with dancing. No matter how badly the host wanted people to dance, it just doesn't happen. I've been to weddings with dancing, but somehow the whole act doesn't translate in the home setting.