Are they crashing at your place? Otherwise don’t bother. I’ve been to a thousand parties and no one has ever done that.
It’s pretty straightforward. There are a few different components to a party:
GUESTS
-Evite.com is a great way of letting everyone know about your party. About a weeks notice is usually good enough.
-Expect about 1/4 of the invites to respond.
-Continually but casually follow up with people to stay on their radar and keep an idea of the guest count
-Invite as many girls as possible
FOOD
-Chips at least
-Cheese and crackers are easy
-Are they coming over before or after dinner? If before, you want to have enough food that people won’t be inclined to leave for dinner (unless that’s what you want). BBQ is always a hit if you have time, depending on the size. If after dinner, go easy because people will be full.
ALCHOHOL
-1/4 keg at least of crap beer - Bud Light, whatever. You will have to guage how much you and your friends can drink. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A WORKING TAP
-A couple of cases of good stuff - Heineken, Amestel, microbrew stuff. About three varieties should do.
[The concept here is you want to start with the good stuff for hanging out, the crap beer for games and as a reserve]
-Make sure it’s all COLD.
-Mixed drinks - Keep it simple. Cheep but impressive sounding wine for the ladies, gin, vodka, Jack Daniels at least. Also have ice, Coke (soda you crack head), tonic water, orange and cranapple juice).
-Signiture drink - Doesn’t hurt to have one signiture drink, whether it’s Jello shots or apple martinis. Bring them out at the peak of the party.
MUSIC
-Lots of people use their iPods to cdrive their party. If you can, I recommend custom playlists for each room.
-The main area you want festive but taylored to your crowd - For Example, my friend and his roomates threw a party in their NY appartment for people in their late 20s-30s. They play a mix of current Top 40 Pop, Dance and Hip Hop (Christina, Shakira, 50, Em, Snoop, etc) with some classics (Bon Jovi, Crew, old school classics, etc).
-Side rooms for conversation you might want some ambient music playing - some trance or acid jazz.
-Use the music to drive the tone of the party
-You know what your friends listen to
SETUP
-Everything should be clean and tidy
-Plenty of toilet paper in all bathrooms
-Lock areas where you don’t want people and anything you don’t want stolen or broken.
-Set up an area for jackets
-Plent of cups
-Plenty of ice
-Maybe a large flat table in the kitchen for games - have a supply of dice, quarters, cards and ping pong balls.
THE PARTY
-Parties have a particular flow to them:
Early Arrivals - these are the first people to show up. Usually it will before the party gets going. The trick is to keep these people entertained while there’s nothing going on and no one there. If they are cool, they’ll help with the final touches or at least stay out of your way.
People Start Showing Up - Guest are arriving now. Your job is introductions, the tour of the place, getting them drinks and introductions.
Full Swing - The party has reached critical mass where you don’t need to attend to anything but the music and the food. This is where you’ll be like “who the fuck are half these people”. Don’t panic. People should be dancing, playing beer pong, talking, making out, whatever you kids do these days. You should be able to have a little fun now as guest are entertaining themselves.
Winding Down - People have noticably left. Most of the food and drink should be gone. People have either left to go to another engagement, coupled off or have just showed up from somewhere else. Soon everyone will notice that “this party is winding down” and it will be declared “dead”.
Straglers - Basically the party is essentially over. There might be a few people passed out or making out in a bathroom or just hanging out. Make sure everyone who’s there is supposed to be there and that’s that.
Cleanup - Basically self explanatory
