How to plan a stress-free party - Part 2

Yesterday I discussed the front-end planning - party style, party theme and party location in your venue/s. Today we look at food and drinks.

Your style, theme and to some extent location/s will strongly influence your food and drink choices. Start with the food. What style will complement your party style and theme - eg a cocktail party style with a Hollywood theme will lend itself more to canapes, elegant drinks and nibbles than to cans of beer and pizza. (Although with the way some Hollywood personalities act ... that's for another day.) If you are self-catering, do you have enough heating, warming or cooling items. Do you have enough tables and tablecloths etc for setting out buffet-style food, as well as a bar area and ice bins dotted around the venue (or by the side of tables).

Now work our your approximate number of guests. This will tell you how much and what sort of party hire equipment you need. In this day and age this can be the trickiest part or planning a party, as even your best friends have probably lost the fine art of the RSVP until the last possible moment.

You're going to have to guess a little, but we can make some clever guesses at certain things. For example, most women will drink 1-2 glasses of wine and then keep to soft drinks. Men will tend to drink more beer than wine (although this can be a generational thing), and, sadly, most will tend to drink directly from cans or small bottles rather than glasses. As a rough rule of thumb, about 60-70% of your guest will require a wine or champagne glass, and 50% a soft drink glass. Again, women will eat less dessert than men, and older people will eat less than younger. Tea and coffee are usually only taken by about 25% of large gatherings, depending upon age of the guests and the style of party.

In Part 3 we'll look at the decorations to "hang it all together".

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