Entertaining, enjoy it!

"Entertaining is one of the things I enjoy most of all."

Entertaining has been one of the most consistent aspects of my life, whether as part of my work or privately, with friends or with my partner.  The main thing is to enjoy it.

Serpentine Pavilion 2015 designed by Selgascano

For work it can be as simple as booking a restaurant for a business meeting or letting your receptionist know that you will need sandwiches for a working lunch or booking drinks for a reception in the evening.   You will already know the client, whether they like formality or not and you naturally adjust your approach (and your bookings) accordingly.

At home it could be inviting neighbours over for drinks or for Sunday lunch.  Perhaps you have been meaning to have friends around and have not quite got to the point of organising something.  Most of us entertain without really thinking about it, a few friends or family over on a Saturday evening is second nature.  It's when the numbers start creeping up and all of sudden the invitees are in double figures and climbing that we start to check ourselves.  But just remember, the basic plan of action remains the same. 

However, when most of us think of entertaining, we imagine, professionally anyway, formal drinks with anything between 10 and a 100 guests or more or celebratory dinners for a similar number.  The basics are the same, you need a space, you need to know your audience and you need to know what would be appropriate refreshments to give them.

Domestically, dinners of eight and above are normally harder to coordinate at home (table size and oven space aside, how many of us borrow chairs once it gets to this number), especially if you are planning on formal courses during the evening, but these is easily simplified.  For example, try platters which instead of separate starters and pre-dinner nibbles can be sorted out well in advance.

I think it's more the Summer or Birthday parties that most people dread.  All those people in your home, what happens if it rains, will I be able to cope.

Again, you can take a leaf out of the professional aspect of organising and simply break it down to space, audience and refreshments.  Timing, staging and hosting will fall into place once you have fixed your date when everyone, or almost everyone, can come.  Agreeing a space, agreeing a formal invite (probably a good idea for larger events), agreeing a budget for refreshments, will follow and then the real fun begins.

For example, at my partner's birthday last year, we hired a room above a gastro pub and a friend dressed it with flowers and other friends also helped with other aspects.  One sourcing live music for a couple of sets, another put together a play list for the rest of the evening and others contributed cake.  The in-house kitchen organised food and wine. 

If you do plan on going down this route, simply making an appointment to look at private dining rooms will give you ideas, if not about the room or venue itself, simply how to set it up for what you want to.  Once you've seen a few, you will get an idea of the quality of venue you would like.  Some have some very good wines and choices of menu, but if some of your guests are elderly or disabled, remember to ask about step free access and whether the toilets are on the same floor as the room you are hiring. 


private dining room, City of London

By default a corporate venue will dress a room formally with neutral colours.  If you actually want a more flamboyant or casual version, ask them what they can do for you and if not to your taste, ask them if they would be willing for you to do this yourself.   Some will only let approved suppliers do any third party contributions.  This could mean flowers, decorations, cake (if they don't offer to make one for you themselves), special wines - perhaps they don't have a favourite champagne or whiskey, or serving staff - not all private venues will have additional staff in-house and may hire in agency staff to assist.

Venues need not be restaurants or pubs, art installations, like the Serpentine Pavilion 2015 designed by Selgascano which had a café in the middle of it, how would you use the space?  We visited in September last year (2015) and the light and the space was very impressive. 

Of course, if you had a friendly art studio, this may be an option for you as well.  Private art studio's are used to hosting drinks/launch parties for their artists, so may be open to suggestions for a private networking party.  They will have the facilities to support such a gathering and, so long as it isn't too wild, it will likely be centrally placed within your town or city so your guests will find it accessible.