10 Tips for Hosting a Successful (and Stress-Free!) Party

This spring Adam and I decided that it was time to start using our home for entertaining. It’s something we had always wanted to do, and once our house was safe and functional enough to invite people over we put our plan into motion. The goal was large monthly parties, every single month. That was six months ago now, and we have since successfully hosted six parties. Also? We’ve learned a lot. So here is my list of my top ten recommendations if you are looking to do something similar.

Hosing a party doesn’t have to be stressful! These ten tips will make hosing parties easy and fun!

Decide to throw the party even though the timing isn’t right and everything isn’t perfect

I think this is the biggest obstacle to overcome when planning something like this. We all want our homes to be super clean and perfectly decorated before we invite people over, or we want to serve them only the most delicious food at a beautiful table. And while there is certainly nothing wrong with that, life just doesn’t work that way. Adam and I are living in a home that is constantly in a state of disarray. It’s under construction and everything is unfinished…for the last few parties there has been scaffolding in our living room, if that tells you anything. We eat on paper plates wherever people can find a place..in the (unfinished) dining room, outside on the porch, on a blanket in the grass, etc. None of it is ideal, and no one has complained. Life is busy and the timing is never perfect….make time for each other anyway.

DIY kitchen progress - wood ceilingFinished and perfect? Nope. Clean and functional? Heck yes.

Make it a Potluck

We have always planned on making our parties potlucks, but the first month I felt like Adam and I should provide the main dish/majority of the food since we were the hosts. That resulted in us completely busting our grocery budget for the month, plus the whole thing was more stressful than I could handle for a party we planned on doing monthly. So now what we do is just provide one simple dish, just like everyone else, and the party is easy and fun.

Top ten tips for hosting successful parties
Totally a stock food photo - ours never looks that good and we eat on paper plates.

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Decide how you want the guest list to work

This is how Adam and I decided to do the guest list – each month we invite all the people in our immediate family, which is 25 people right off the bat. Then we invite a few extra friends, usually ones that already know each other (but not always). Our parties end up being between 30 and 50 people, and each month is different but also has also some consistency. Doing it this way does have some downsides though, the first being that even after six months of parties we still have a lot of friends we haven’t invited yet. We plan to get around to everyone, it’s just going to take some time. Secondly, I also hate having some of our closest friends be invited one month but not the next. I don’t really see around this though….this is what happens when you have a large family that all likes each other.

Set aside a few days for cleaning

This goes without saying I’m sure, but there is a lot of prep work to be done before 50 people come over to your house. Adam and I spend a solid two days cleaning the house before each party. We scrub toilets, mop floors, pressure wash all the chicken poop off the breezeway and porches, and do all the things that normally keep getting pushed down the to-do list. It’s not the most fun thing ever…but I kinda love that having the party makes us get these things done. Each month is a fresh start for our house, and I love that.

Ten tips for hosting monthly parties

Use an app like Funnster

You can send out invites via snail mail, e-mail, group texts, create a facebook group or a multitude of other ways, but we use an app called Funnster. We like it because in addition to sending out the invites and reminders automatically, it also lets you set the menu and has people sign up to bring a food when they RSVP. This is super helpful in that guests aren’t guessing what to bring and you (as the host) know you are going to have all your bases covered.

Potluck party invitation the easy way

Have a food theme

This isn’t necessary, but each month Adam and I sit down and brainstorm a theme before we set up the next party on Funnster. So far we’ve had a baked potato bar, comfort food, fajitas, soup salad and breadsticks, cold food (when it was August and crazy hot), Italian, and Octoberfest. We usually try to come up with an adult drink of the month too, something fun and different (in addition to wine and beer).

Sangria

Have it on a Friday

We tried having the parties on both Fridays and Saturdays, and really prefer Friday. We usually start around six and people just come over after work, and everyone trickles out between about nine and midnight. Fridays are better for two reasons – 1) if you have the party on Friday then you still get a weekend. The prep work gets finished during the week and Saturday morning is a quick clean up and then you are free for two days. If you have it on Saturday then you spend all Friday pre-cleaning and Sunday post cleaning and thinking that isn’t almost Monday already. 2) People stay later on Fridays. It might be kinda of a pain to come out to our house after work, but most of our family and friends are churchgoers, and we all have to be up and looking decent Sunday morning.

Ten tips for hosting a party

Make it kid-friendly

Adam and I are in the throes of parenting our four little boys, so you can imagine how many adult-only social functions we get to attend (it’s zero, if you were wondering). For us, making the party kid friendly wasn’t even a question…I want you to come, I want it to be easy, and I want you to bring your minivan full of kids. Sometimes we end up with only a handful of kids and other months we’ll have 25, and each month we try to have a simple activity that is fun for the kids.

Have a person set aside to pick up last-minute things

It took us a few months to figure this one out, but have a person set aside that doesn’t sign up for anything and just picks up things last-minute. This may not be such a big deal for people in the city, but we are out in the country and running to the store takes about an hour. Usually, we will have forgotten to add something to the list or someone canceled last-minute, so having someone stop by the store on their way to our house is really helpful.

Be okay with things getting broken

When you invite a bunch of people (and kids) over to your house, things are going to get broken, it’s unavoidable. During our parties we have had multiple people run over our rock wall, broken kitchen odds and ends, broken the water dispenser on the fridge, a giant yard rut from the slip and slide, etc. This just comes with the territory, and I can honestly say I don’t mind one bit. Houses are for living…what is the fun in having a picture perfect home if it’s not full of family, friends, and memories?

How to make hosting parties easy and fun

So there it is, my top ten tips for throwing a party! We have really loved having these monthly parties, and I think everyone else has as well (since they keep showing up and all). Hopefully this is just the start of a longstanding tradition!

 

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13 Comments

  1. What great advice! I love your laid back attitude. It really is about friends and family and just getting together for a fun evening. Thanks for spelling this all out.

  2. Sounds like you are having fun entertaining! When my kids were young, we would throw massive (50 – 100 folks) parties at least 4 times a year and I enjoyed every minute of them – even the pre & post party work. One thing we did at several parties was try to have some kind of activity where the kids could make something to take home with them. Usually it depended on the season – tie-dyed t-shirts in summer; marker decorated mini pumpkins in fall; decorated plastic or foam ornaments at Christmas; foam Easter eggs decorated with glue & fabric; etc, etc, etc. My kids friends (now 21 & 23) still talk about how much fun they had at those parties! Enjoy these times – they fly by! :-)

  3. Great article! I will be hosting an a wedding party in May and I feel like I am in a rush to get all the projects done in time at our house. Would you suggest throwing some smaller parties int he space first to see how the hosting goes? I imagine your parties have only gotten better and better over time.

    1. I think hosting few parties before the wedding would be a great idea! You can work out the kinks, see how people actually use your house in a crowd (people don’t always hang out where you want them too!), and, if nothing else, it would make you less anxious about the big day in May.

  4. Great work!!! It’s really very hard to arrange things in a right way for a great party. But the difficult part is cleaning the after party mess. But no worries now, The best cleaning services in jersey city are a great relief for such things. They are really really helpful.

  5. Great tip, the point which you have written about a potluck is really amazing, I have also faced this issue in my past, this is the main point I guess, thanks for mentioning it, you are really doing a great job , Thanks.

  6. BE OKAY WITH THINGS GETTING BROKEN i like this tips because at this time i mean if someone broken dish or glass, then that time i getting too much angry and i can’t control it.

  7. Ashley!!! For some reason I stopped getting the blog posts, and I thought you had stopped writing! I looked something up from your blog the other day and saw that there were new posts and was so surprised, but so happy to see that you’re still posting. I re-signed up and now I’m going through them all to see what I’ve missed.
    This party post is excellent. I love how your point about the picture perfect house that never gets used – what’s the point? When something got broken in our house my mother would say, “Never mind. It’s just goods and chattels.”
    SO glad to see you!! xoxo

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