How To Welcome Your Guests

The unofficial start to your dinner party
Greeting your guests
What to do with hostess gifts
Introductions
Drinks and Appetizers
Seating Your Guests

Welcome Your Guests, but first, welcome yourself
The unofficial start to your dinner party is really at least half an hour before your first guest is due to arrive.

It should start unofficially with you sitting down and resting for a few minutes, maybe with a glass of wine or your drink of choice in your hand.

The Dinner Party Planning System – Plan Ahead, Do Ahead and Keep it Simple – lets you find these important few minutes for yourself before the doorbell rings.

And these few minutes are important to your dinner party. Don’t welcome your guests distracted by last minute chores. You don’t want to feel overtired because you have been working up until the last second.

Taking time for yourself does not mean grabbing a last minute shower, starting to get dressed, or doing last minute jobs.

It means planning to be dressed and ready half an hour before. It means you have completed all the do-in-advance tasks. It means putting on your dinner music, pausing, looking around and enjoying the atmosphere you have created.

Feast your eyes on your lovely table; feast your nose on the delicious smells wafting from the kitchen. Feast your ears on the mood music you have chosen.

OK, go ahead – feast your taste by sneaking an appetizer!

In other words, you are now bringing yourself to the party.

So build in this half hour for yourself when you plan countdown-to-party time.

Greeting your guests
Because dinner is the occasion for gathering, it is easy to forget about planning the first part of the party. But it may well be an hour or more before you actually sit down to your delicious dinner. In that hour or so, you will be setting the mood for a relaxing and enjoyable evening.

Here are some suggestions to make sure the transition from doorbell to dinner table goes comfortably for everyone.

Answering the door As host or hostess, try to answer the door yourself, so you can greet and welcome each guest.

Preparing the foyer Most of us don’t live in castles, with servants and spacious closets at our command. So we may need to make temporary additions to the foyer. Where will their coats and wraps go? Where can they set down their purses, parcels, gloves and other items? What if it’s raining, windy or snowing? No matter how small your foyer is, try to provide:

• A spot where guests can put down items like gloves, purses and keys while they remove wraps or wet footwear.
• A mirror for quick pats at wind-blown hair
• A spot for wet footwear
• A path for guests to get into the main rooms without stepping in wet footprints.

If necessary plan where coats and wraps will go if not in the foyer closet or coatstand. Usually a bedroom is pressed into service.

What to do with hostess or host gifts
People often bring hostess gifts of wine, flowers or chocolates to dinner parties. Be ready to receive the gifts graciously if they do.

This means planning ahead for a vase and scissors in case you need to put flowers in water. You should also have a candy or chocolates dish at hand in case you want to set out the chocolates.

Should you serve the wine that people bring as a hostess gift? It’s your call. The wine your guest brings is a gift, so strictly speaking it is up to you whether to serve it or not. Sometimes guests bring bottles that simply don’t go with what you are serving. You can try thanking your guest and saying that you will enjoy their wine the next time you cook (name a suitable dish).

But sometimes there is more than etiquette involved. Sometimes you will sense that courtesy and sensitivity to the guest’s wishes are better guides than being a stickler for the wine guidelines. If your guest will be offended, or is anxious to try the wine he or she brought, you can always put both bottles on the table and let people choose their preference.

Introductions
If you have invited people who don’t know everyone, plan ahead for an introduction that leaves guests a “conversational hook” to let them start chatting. For example, “This is Joe, he has just moved to our neighborhood this year.” If your community is like most, that should get the real estate talk going!

It is particularly useful to other guests if you know your guests have something in common. For example, you could say “This is Joe, he is an avid skier, just like you. Joe, tell Pete and Mary about your ski trip to …” An introduction that gives guests a natural conversational lead-in makes you more comfortable too. If you have to slip away to the kitchen, you know that you have started the ball rolling between guests.

Drinks and Appetizers
These are subjects all to themselves, and we’ll talk about them in more detail on separate web pages.

Briefly, you will be planning ahead to set out ice, glasses and other equipment for drinks, made provision for non-alcoholic drinks. It’s really handy if you set out any white wine in a wine cooler, so you or others don’t have to run to the frig for refills.

If you are hosting alone, ask a guest to help you serve the first round of drinks. Then you can ask that guest to take charge of refills and serving latecomers if you need to disappear to the kitchen for a few minutes.

Set out plates and napkins for appetizers. Some guests won’t use them, but others may be nervous about getting food stains on clothes and will be grateful for a plate and napkin.

Your appetizers may include bit that guests need to dispose of - like shrimp shells or toothpicks holding meatballs. Be sure to set out an empty dish they can use, and tell them that it is for disposable bits. It’s disconcerting for a guest to be hunting around for somewhere to set garbage in an otherwise perfect-looking setting.

So for now, let’s assume that you have served pre-dinner drinks and appetizers and you are ready for guests to come to the table.

Seating Your Guests
It’s a good idea to give your guests a warning a few minutes in advance of coming to the table. That gives anyone who wishes a chance to slip away to the powder room, or finish a cocktail.

Plan in advance where you want people to sit. Waving your hand and saying sit anywhere usually makes people feel awkward. Better to give them a place.

Seat yourself and a helper if any near the kitchen. If you are using a rectangular table, take a seat at the head if possible, as most guests are reluctant to sit in places that they feel belong to the host or hostess.

And now, welcome your guests to the table, and enjoy your dinner party along with them.

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