6 Hacks To Crack The Hosting Code
It’s About Time!
We all know fall is the season. Coziness strikes back to bring cute scarfs, blazers, and hot pumpkin lattes into our day-to-day once again. It is also the perfect season to do what we love most: creating memories with unforgettable get-togethers.
Now how exciting is it to have a “no-reason party” close to your loved ones while listening to your favorite playlist and telling each other all your summer stories? It’s a vibe.
It feels so good to attend parties or tweet-ups planned for you to have the most wonderful time. The moment you receive the invite, you know it’s about to be prep time. You get to dedicate time to yourself, find out the party details and go outfit haunting, either in your closet or in that nice shop you discovered around the corner. How exciting is that?!
It’s just the spark you need to motivate yourself to keep going, after getting over the first months of work catch-up and being reunited with your dear tight schedules.
This is your chance to get away from your routine and take time to be party-ready. This means, apart from the outfit, you will need to investigate further. Who will be there? What are they going to wear? Are there some ideas for the party you want to collaborate in? Text your pals and find out all about it!
It Doesn’t Get More Exciting Than That!
We all love some fun stress-relieving events, but as good as it feels to be a guest, there is nothing like hosting the event yourself and watching your friends feel at home in your own place.
Being the host is the ultimate experience to prove to yourself you’re a great party-planner, but also the funnest way to test your creative skills. You can let your mind flow and brainstorm as much as you want. Put no limits to your imagination, and you will come up with the most amazing and doable ideas.
Make lists and more lists of everything you can think of, from ideas for the party to the people you would like to invite. Remember: the best gatherings you have been to have all started with a random idea on someone’s mind. Well, this will start the same way, but it will feel three times more awesome just by being the host.
Of course, to make it look as good and rewarding as this sounds, this takes a little preparation. Don’t stress it, just a couple or three days in advance, a stress-less kind of preparation.
The key is to start from the bottom. You’ve been with your friends at your house on countless occasions and most of them have worked just fine by lying on the sofa with a great movie and some snacks, right?
So, give them the cozy sofa and the snacks (the movie… well, yes, maybe leave that for your petite committee meetings). On other occasions, you’ve had a nice homemade dinner and have listened to some music while remembering your most crazy stories together.
So be it! Give them the food, the music, and the stories, the rest will be history. The idea is to build your event from the basics, and you could already call it a successful one.
Keeping It Simple: The Basics.
Think about it, with the right people you could do anything randomly, and it could become the best day of your life. Yes, we love to see people’s jaws dropping, but keep in mind that usually, the best memories are in the less fancy places. Think about it like a bonding session in your home, and from here, go as big as you wish to!
These are a few things we could do that would spice up the party and make it feel special for everybody from the beginning.
- Invite your closest friends
Seems obvious, but you really want your people to actually come and enjoy something that has surely become one of the few things you’ve been thinking and been so excited about for days.
Create a WhatsApp group chat, or even send a Google calendar invite, making sure your most forgetful friends remember the date! You can even go extra and set a dress code or add a questionnaire for food options to make your event suitable for everyone.
Will your friends bring the drinks? Some snacks? Throwing a culture party and want your friends to bring homemade dishes from different countries? If you want to theme the party, add the details too!
- Play those tunes!
Every moment can have its soundtrack. But how to know which will be the one that suits your lovely gathering? Make a collaborative playlist and tell your friends to add their favorite songs. (And that’s how to create hype for what’s about to come!)
Any musicians among your friends? Well, well… I guess we’re having a private concert! Tell them to bring their guitars and make an acoustic gig in your home that will have everyone thinking they’re in a Coachella backstage room.
- Food for thought
This is about feeding the crew but also about wastage of food, drinks, and consequently money. Make sure to know in advance how many people are coming so that you have enough food and drinks, but also to avoid having excess that could go to waste.
You can either ask your guests to bring some snacks each or make sure what’s on the table will be everybody’s cup of tea. This will assure everybody is happy and well-fed, plus minimum wastage.
For drinks, you could go a little crazier (drinks are never wasted: you can always stack your bar cabinet with leftover bottles) Dot ice buckets around and keep your drinks cool and ready, and really stock up on ice to replace it.
Going creative? Make a cocktail menu with instructions for creating the different drinks, or even prepare the cocktails in a bowl and a big scoop for people to serve their own piña coladas or mojitos.
Going Extra Up In Here
Invites, music, food, and drinks are a must. This will make your party the greatest of parties already. Although, if your goal is to create the jaw-dropping effect, you could go fancy on your decoration and tableware or even organize some activities to hit them with during the event.
- Fancy gadgets
From a stocked bar to a wine decanter, there’s a whole world of possibilities to impress your guests with something new.
But really, think about it: a stocked bar ready to go. As easy as preparing a drawer in your kitchen as a cocktail kit with basics such as a corkscrew, a bottle opener, and cute reusable straws, napkins, and holders. Imagine all of this on a tray so that you can lift it out of the drawer and put it back in.
And what about the lighting of your party? Yes, we should always remember this game-changing detail. With just a few arrangements, you can make your home look like a dream cave where you know from the moment you step in that it’s going to be a day to remember.
We’re talking mood lights, candles, or even the nice little shaped bulbs that you can find in any shape and color and that are great for themed parties.
With such great lighting, it’s your chance to set a photocall with some pictures of your friends or just a DIY poster with the name of the party or anything you can think of! A spot like that will assure you that people actually take pictures from your creation and keep your party in their memories forever.
We know you’re thinking about the wine decanter thing. This is something that can elevate the way you present your wine of choice, that tastes amazing but has a not-so-amazing label, while also bringing a delightful wine-drinking experience.
It is sometimes called a wine pourer, but it is definitely more than that. Yes, it is used to hold wine before drinking it, but there are two main purposes when it comes to decanting wine. When it comes to wine, the “pairing” is always important. The best pairing for any decanter? Our Gabfoods natural wines!
1st is aeration. It allows the wine to meet oxygen after being bottled up for so long, and it releases its aromas and enhances its taste.
2nd is sediment removal. Especially older wines would benefit from this since they can contain a bit of sediment. When pouring it into a glass from the decanter, sediment is separated, and you can have a debris-free wine-drinking experience.
Make a cute note explaining this next to the decanter, and you’ll see people thinking they’re in a royal gala.
- It’s game time baby!
Your party is becoming more and more unique. You have everything you need for hosting, plus some extra details. The fun is guaranteed. Although, some extra activities planned in advance could make your loved ones bond with each other much more (we all know about little groups in any kind of event), so games are a great and subtle way to make people get to know everybody.
Show off your Jenga skills. At themed parties, you could also make the game be related to it. If you’re throwing a Cluedo party, you already have it, but you could ask your friends to help you come up with a game in advance, that is according to your dress code or party theme.
- Take it outdoors
When you’re hosting a party, there are plenty of people around your living room which can sometimes lead to the very feared and unwanted drink spills on the carpet or chairs, and even simply a lack of chairs.
This is your chance to take advantage of your outdoor space and make it extra. It’s the key to make people feel at a cocktail party when drinking outside, or even to make sure smokers have their place while ensuring more comfort indoors. The bigger the space, the bigger the experience.
Most of the time, we forget about our patios and only use them to sunbathe in summer. With just a few lights and tables, your garden could potentially be one of your guest’s favorite places to hang out. What a great opportunity to discover every corner of your house and make it special!
Don’t forget rule nº1 – enjoy every second of it!
The best hosting hack is to relax and go with the flow. The importance of prepping some of the things in advance is to avoid being the supervisor at your own party.
Yes, you will probably have to keep an eye on empties and maybe clean some spilling that someone might have dropped (hopefully only staining the floor and being easily wiped off). But other than that, you should allow yourself to be a guest too!
Overthinking about the next-day-cleaning? Add different points where people can throw garbage and make sure they have lids for appearance (and to ensure the pumpkin spice candles and delicious food are the only things that your house smells like), and even make them look nice and add colors for recycling. Maybe that’s your chance to go DIY. It’s better to spend time creating than cleaning 😉
Other ideas could be replacing bins for nice baskets or wooden boxes to throw the glass or paper in.
Anything you can prevent that would otherwise make your event a stressful moment for you, do it! Count on your closest friends for help, and dance to your favorite song (you know when it’s going to play on your list).
Being a host is all fun and games here!
Looking for different tableware to surprise your guests with? Discover here all the items we have to step up your table game and make an impression
