Just chiming in as another person (I’m mid-20s, my husband is early 30s) who regularly hosts dinner parties at our house – they’re really good fun! We are currently alternating monthly dinners with another couple where, a week before the dinner, we draw a country out of a hat and have to cook in the style of that cuisine.
Dress up dinner parties are rare IME usually for something like a post or pre wedding dinner or an anniversary, or perhaps a graduation, or are related to professional life and attendent socialising in some way.
Other wise its nice clothes yes but please dress down.
Cooking for people who don’t cook is great in my opinion. They are easy to impress!
Last night my dinner club wanted to do something easy and light because it was so hot and there were things on TV we wanted to watch. So everyone brought a few vegetables for a salad and we made a “salad bar.” It turned out great and was very simple.
How many people usually come? I love that you use different countries for inspiration. It must keep the parties lively.
Yeah, it seems certain professions are more into this type of networking. I’m adding this to the growing list of reasons I need a husband.
Any single male dopers interested in a marriage of dinner parties and living in a shed? 
That’s a good point. 
That sounds fun. You use different things to garish it. Like cheese. You could use different dressings. I’m stealing this idea.
Those parties are just with another couple, so it’s just the four of us, but usually when we host dinner it’s 6-8 people total. I think that’s a good number for conversation - big enough that nobody has to carry it (unless they want to), but small enough that it doesn’t fracture into multiple conversations.
That’s exactly what we did. Had a variety of dressings, greens, some proteins, and some cheeses to go alongside all the vegetables. Honestly I was a little dubious about this because I view salads as a side dish, but it was great and very filling.
We don’t do “formal” parties, but we like to have theme parties. Last year we did a soup/bread party. Prep started two weeks ahead. My gf and I each made 3 soups, and froze them in gallon ziplocks. I made a variety of breads. We bought a case of giant soup mugs.
The day of the party, we put the soups into crock-pots to reheat (we borrowed 4 crock-pots and had two). I made some of the bread that wouldn’t freeze well that day as well. As people arrived, they were given their own mugs. Soups were self-serve. Each soup had a garnish station. There was wine/beer to drink. The meal went on for around four hours.
At the end of the night, we had a dish-washing station (which was a rinsing station during the meal) for people to clean their mugs, which they took home with them.
We used to have an annual dinner party of about 20 people. It wasn’t terribly formal, but it was a lot of fun. We stopped having them a few years ago because of the sheer number of children about. I love children, but not my friends’ children, mostly because if there are more than X amount of adults about, my friends start assuming that someone else is watching their kids. I have no problem disciplining my friends’ children and have no problem with them doing the same to mine, but with so many people about and no one paying any attention, those kids acted like little shits.
The last year we had a party that large, we wound up with purple moon sand ground into the white dining room carpet, kids jumping off the couches in the living room and sand fights erupting in the back yard at the sand table. I can’t remember ever thinking that doing that at someone else’s home was ok.
There wasn’t significant enough property damage to cause any of us to stop being friends, but there are certainly some couples who we prefer to meet out somewhere instead of having them over if it means their kids are coming, too. It kinda sucks because I like having dinner parties and entertaining.
We do sometimes have a couple of couples and their kids over, but it’s far, far more infrequent than it used to be.
One party that worked so well one year was to have everyone over around 11 a.m. on a Sunday and do brunch. Breakfast casseroles, fresh fruit, desserts. It was perfect. And most of my friends’ kids were little enough that they were still taking naps, so they could come over, feed the kids, toss them on the guest bed at naptime and hang out with the adults.
You should have a dinner party where everyone brings one “extraordinary” person and you all make fun of them!
We used to do an annual Easter dinner party with another couple until they moved. It pretty much turned into “lets see how many bottles of wine we can polish off this year!”
I agree. I think that’s a good number for a lot of reasons. I don’t want to clean up after more than ten or so people. :o
I’m glad you said this. I was going to ask if they were filling, but I didn’t want to sound like a pig. :o
You guys are serious business. 
It was smart to do the prep work in advance. That sounds like a lot of fun. I like your mug idea. Depending on how it goes with my party, I might try to incorporate something like this into it. I love party favors.
Thanks for sharing your horror stories. Your friends sound like my mom’s side of the family. They think if they bring their kids somewhere someone will watch them. They’re kids don’t behave well when they’re parents are watching them. Thankfully, none of my friends have kids.
I love your brunch idea, but I’m not an early raiser on the weekends. I might do a breakfast for dinner theme if this takes off in my circle.
Are you a Paul Rudd fan, too?
When I was with my ex, his home was kind of the place to be. Not so much for dinner parties, but there was always entertaining going on. It usually ended with everyone getting shit faced.