Our definition of a “dinner party” means we are having a sit down dinner with someone who is not a member of our household. I don’t have any formal china unless a set of OCR that my husband bought for me as a gift can be counted as “formal,” so we almost always eat off the everyday dishes (Twist Alea). But… cloth napkins instead of the paper ones. And silverware placed correctly.
(I used to dream that someday I would have a set of very, very pretty dishes with a fancy pattern and a silver rim… as I got older, that dream went poof! )
I like both going to people’s homes/having them at ours, and going to restaurants.
We have a group of 4 couples, and the 4 “primary” people all have birthdays within a month. Each year we get together in someone’s home. The host makes the main dish. Others bring appetizer, dessert, and salad. We’ve done this for years, and we all know the drill. During COVID, we ordered carry out from a restaurant and ate in someone’s yard.
I don’t like having “big” parties. I want everyone to be able to sit down, and I stress about not having enough food. I prefer the 8-12 range of people.
I think in big groups it can be hard, especially for people on the ends of the table, and if they don’t know each other.
We do this a lot and have a core group that it usually works with as well. Sometimes my wife will cook everything and other times sorta pot luck. We have a backyard for entertaining so it’s mostly at our place.
Our small neighborhood has a Friday happy hour on the street just about every week. Our houses are very spread apart, and we also have long driveways. But meeting in the street is great. We did this during COVID also…it was nice to be out and talk to people we didn’t live with.
We have several neighborhood events…we have a beach so a couple of picnics in the summer. A progressive thing for Halloween. A couple of neighbors have parties too.
I like a blend. Going out to a restaurant means no prep or clean up!
I’ve done it all in terms of entertaining, but my preference is just doing drinks and heavy appetizers. I like grazing, cocktail-type parties much more than sit down parties. They are much less stressful to me.
I honestly prefer to prepare everything myself regardless of the type of party, and I don’t like having to take something to a potluck at someone else’s home. I either want all the responsibility at my house or none of it at yours. I think it’s a PITA to schlep something to someone else’s house. And, how to keep it hot enough? Or cold enough? When people bring food to my house for a potluck, they always seem to need something - a serving utensil, a basket, etc. That’s not a big deal if you are having three or couples over, but if you are having forty people and no one brings a serving utensil for their dish, you run out pretty quickly. Plus, they have all the paraphernalia they brought their stuff in - where do I put all of that? Baskets and grocery bags and carriers that they have brought their items in. All cluttering up my counters and taking up space. And then they want to save their chip bag after having poured their chips into the basket they needed from me. Then I’m also having to figure out on the fly where to put all of the different foods they have brought in. And maybe there is enough room and maybe there is not. Plus, with potlucks, there is invariably far more food than needed, and I feel like much of it gets wasted. Just no. It’s probably why I was never a fan of group projects in school. Just let me do it all myself.
If I have people over for a true sit down dinner party, it’s likely only going to be one or two other couples, it will be casual, but I won’t ask you to bring anything. Since downsizing, I can only seat six people. I also no longer have fancy anything. Not much for serving anything - platters and similar. I don’t even own any cloth napkins anymore. I should probably remedy that before ds brings home a girlfriend.
I adore dinner parties, both attending and hosting. But the hosting I find very time consuming, between cooking and cleaning before and after. During that first Covid summer, I had entertaining down to a science, in the backyard, with distanced tables, and serving tongs for each participant to not touch a shared serving utensil. It was a great relief to see friends that year.
I am glad for summer again and that outdoor yard time as I’d rather tidy the yard than make the house impeccable. Plus Covid is still with us.
I am mixed about potlucks per se, but around here, folks tend to bring wine, salad or dessert, cutting down on the hosting responsibilities. I like to cook for people, am sometimes quite good at it, and it certainly is cheaper than restaurants. Plus I love to linger over the table with longer conversation than the typical restaurant meals.
As I live alone, I like the warmth that a group of people bring to my solitary house, and the glow that lingers.
A good thing about eating at home that we encounter is people aren’t hearing as well as they used to. We can talk louder and move around to talk at home, whereas in a restaurant it’s really hard to hear with background noise.
We don’t really do dinner parties in the fancy way described here. I don’t even have a dining room and the table we have is a 4 seater plus a couple spots at the kitchen island. What we do have is summer barbecues because we live across the street from a lake. We’ll invite very good friends to go swimming and provide barbecue, snacks and a couple sides. I tell everyone to bring their own drinks. I lay out old sheets on the living room floor for kids to sit on and eat while taking a break from the sun. Sometimes if I make a big pot of gumbo I’ll invite a couple people to stop by for a bowl but otherwise if we want to hang with friends we prefer to let a restaurant or winery do the cooking and cleaning, especially now that our kids are teenagers and don’t need to come along.
This is me! I cannot hear everyone or see everyone in a restaurant and we cook better food for less money.
We have one neighbor who we/they may invite over for “sunset” as our neighborhood faces west. Sometimes it’s an hour with light eats/drinks, other nights it turns into 12-1-2AM laughter and fun.
We have a lovely group of neighbors, I love the idea of the weekly casual connection.
I only have close friends and family over for dinner, with everyone else I prefer to eat out. I don’t do potluck, not at my home or other people’s. When I have people over I don’t want them to work. They are my guests. If I am too busy I’ll just order out. I am always very appreciative when people invite me over to dinner because I know how much work it is.
I get that inviting people over for meals is a big hassle. It’s worth the effort to me though. If I had to do all the food myself, I just wouldn’t do it. One thing I started doing later in 2020 and in 2021 was to have people over for drinks and snacks AFTER dinner. They bring their own drink and own snacks for sharing. I’m going to continue doing that with smaller groups because it’s soooo much less work. It’s also good for game nights because we can get right to playing.
Whoever said they are irked with people needing a basket, or serving utensils, or a salad bowl, yes, that does make me crazy. People, PLEASE bring those things! Because it annoys me so much, I always do this when I bring food to people’s houses. I am usually the only person who does so.
I don’t think I have ever attended what would be considered a formal dinner party (never hosted one either). My typical invite for another couple or family would be to come for an informal BBQ. Usually outside and mostly serving buffet style.
I have been to many gathering of women where we do lunch and everybody brings either a salad, appetizer, or desert. These tend to be larger groups.
Otherwise, the most common invitation for another couple or a group of friends is dinner or lunch at a nice restaurant. My husband and I don’t go out to eat much just the two of us, so these meals out are a treat.
I enjoy all of these: eating out with friends, having friends for a BBQ, or being part of a bigger pot luck type gathering.
I grew up going to my parent’s friends’ houses every week since I was a child. We were first gen and it was a way for my parents to gather with their friends from the old country. Despite these parties happening pretty much 3x a month, these were all-out affairs. 40+ people and it was all done by the person throwing the party. 4 entrees, multiple sides, multiple desserts. It was a production. No pot luck at these parties.
Then as I grew older and watched these Food TV Network shows and would see Ina Garten being able to put some grapes and cheese on a plate and make 1 roasted meat dish and 1 dessert- I was jealous of how easy it was for her to entertain versus in my upbringing/culture. I still cannot break the cycle and do a simple dinner with friends. I get stressed out and overthink the dinner. So, alas, I prefer to go to a restaurant.
I love hearing the diverse perspectives on this thread! I have friends who entertain (or go to friends’ houses or restaurants) multiple times a weekend (and post same on Facebook!) whereas my hub and I kinda prefer to stay home for 80% of the time, esp. when our daughter is home. We are usually the first to leave a party, LOL. But, we love our neighbors and friends! We hang out with them instead at shared activities and casual chats outside.
I’ve always felt maybe I was slacking (for limited hosting) or there might be something less than ideal about my lower-gear social mode that I had to fix. Love to hear that others share that, as well as ideas about entertaining activities should the opportunity/desire arise.
I do think there is an element of expected reciprocity in home entertaining. I understand that, but what I don’t like is when things get into a one-up-manship vibe where everyone is trying to outdo the last gathering. We were in a wine club for awhile that was like that.
That sounds like birthday parties when my kids were younger, one mom even brought in a pony, sadly her marriage ended in a divorce, must be something going on in that household at that time for one-up manship.
I only throw party for my immediate families, and very rare occasion for my husband’s friend and family members, actually I cook for them when they’re here and that’s it.
Growing up, our parents definitely did not host or go to any dinner parties. We had a great neighborhood and families intermingled (kids playing) but socializing was largely outdoors in the driveway or a couple of moms sitting on the front porch while kids played. MAYBE my mom went to a neighbors for coffee now and then actually inside. Moms would get together in the summer to do vegetable canning together - does that count?
And my mom raised a daughter who doesn’t like entertaining. For my kids YES, all the time . Love to have them home/over. Otherwise not interested beyond a couple of close friends that are like family or a couple close family
Members. Having people over is a big source of stress and going is to a degree as well. I am definitely introverted and am content.
I like it all - hosting and attending dinner parties where the guest just shows up and eats as well as hosting and attending potluck gatherings.
My house is not set up well to accommodate large groups indoors, so aside from hosting most of the extended family holiday meals, our sit-down dinner parties are usually limited to one or two additional couples. For these types of meals, we ask our guests just to show up. Most tend to come with a bottle of something anyway.
In the warmer weather we tend to host larger events (anywhere from 10-40 guests) and generally those are potluck. I used to try to just do it all myself, but something about inviting people to an outdoor event seems to propel them to insist on bringing something and I finally gave up that battle. In the end, we always end up with a beautiful and varied array of dishes.
If I have to go to a party that involves dinner I do greatly prefer potluck over the host doing all the cooking. That way I can be sure there is at least one thing my people will eat. My husband can’t do dairy (makes him physically ill) and one of my adult kids is vegan and one vegetarian. We also don’t drink.
During the earlier part of the pandemic we did order take out with good friends and enjoyed it on their porch. That works for me.
I don’t have any formal china unless a set of OCR that my husband bought for me as a gift can be counted as “formal,” so we almost always eat off the everyday dishes (Twist Alea). But… cloth napkins instead of the paper ones. 
And silverware placed correctly.
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