Hired Hands in Party

Try to hire one person to help if you’re entertaining more than six people for dinner. Agencies can provide aspiring actors and students who are experienced at garnishing, serving, and cleanup. The help frees you to prepare the menu and be with your guests.
Above all, do not feel guilty or self-conscious about hiring help. Guests do not expect superhuman efforts on the part of their host. They expect their host to relax and enjoy the party along with them.
You may be able to hire a friend’s college-age children. Some amateur cooks love to work parties and are flattered to be asked. Best of all is hiring your own children, as long as you pay them fairly. They know where things belong, and the experience helps them to become at ease at parties.
If none of these less-expensive alternatives are available, you will have to go the agency route. These workers are bonded and insured, which means that—in the unlikely event that something is stolen or broken negligently and you can prove it—the insurance company will pay to replace it.
Agencies work in two ways: The host pays the agency, which pays the workers; or the host pays the workers, who give a commission to the agency. In either case it is not necessary to tip bonded household workers, because their cost is so high to begin with. You also do not tip independent workers who are their own bosses.

Hired Hands in Party

Try to hire one person to help if you’re entertaining more than six people for dinner. Agencies can provide aspiring actors and students who are experienced at garnishing, serving, and cleanup. The help frees you to prepare the menu and be with your guests.
Above all, do not feel guilty or self-conscious about hiring help. Guests do not expect superhuman efforts on the part of their host. They expect their host to relax and enjoy the party along with them.
You may be able to hire a friend’s college-age children. Some amateur cooks love to work parties and are flattered to be asked. Best of all is hiring your own children, as long as you pay them fairly. They know where things belong, and the experience helps them to become at ease at parties.
If none of these less-expensive alternatives are available, you will have to go the agency route. These workers are bonded and insured, which means that—in the unlikely event that something is stolen or broken negligently and you can prove it—the insurance company will pay to replace it.
Agencies work in two ways: The host pays the agency, which pays the workers; or the host pays the workers, who give a commission to the agency. In either case it is not necessary to tip bonded household workers, because their cost is so high to begin with. You also do not tip independent workers who are their own bosses.

Party Invitations

If you want an immediate response and your party is of a fairly manageable size, invite guests by telephone. It’s true that voice mail and answering machines may make the contact less direct than you would like, but people tend to respond more promptly to telephone messages than to written correspondence.
Remember to smile when you make that call. It is true that a smile can be heard over the telephone. (If you are wondering what your voice sounds like, record it and listen.)
Remember that invitations of any kind should be welcoming and inviting. You don’t necessarily have to use engraved stationery, but the invitation should convey a spirit of festivity. Even if you write a personal note, it should convey this spirit and make the person feel especially welcome.
Whether you are inviting people by telephone o by mail, be sure to communicate all of the vital elements of an invitation—who, what, when, where, why. Include a map or verbal directions to the location. It is also kind to clue people in about how to dress. If you are inviting someone you have just met or don’t know well, give that person some idea about who else will be present. Some singles feel awkward going solo, so decide well in advance whether to invite them to bring a friend. If not, make sure they know there will be others in the same boat at the party. You don’t have to be a matchmaker and shouldn’t be tempted into those murky waters. Just prevent people from feeling like fifth wheels. Here are some examples:
➤ “I am calling to invite you to dinner next Friday, the tenth, and if you’d like to bring a friend, by all means do, although we’d be delighted to have just you.”
➤ “We’d like to invite you and a friend for dinner on the tenth.”
➤ “We’d like to invite you to dinner on the tenth.”
As a guest, never assume an invitation means to bring a guest. Always respond to an invitation immediately. It’s fine to ask who else will be there, but not until after you’ve given your answer. Otherwise, your reply will seem conditional on the guest list.

Negative Additions

What do you do about the unexpected guest or the last-minute addition? If you can accommodate the extra person without undue disruption, do so gracefully and as cheerfully as possible.
However, there are situations in which you should refuse to accept the added guest. It may be that adding a seemingly discordant plate or flatware to your perfectly set table would just make you crazy. And you can’t just fabricate a seventh Cornish hen when you have planned a party for six.
The refusal should be accomplished with as much grace and good humor as possible to avoid bad feelings. One reputedly excellent hostess used to call on me regularly to attend her seated dinner parties. One day she called to invite me to dinner, and I told her that I had gotten married the month before. “That’s terrible,” she said. “What will I do? You can’t bring your husband. It will ruin my seating arrangement.” Happily, I never heard from her again.

Men and Women

Fortunately, we’re beyond the days when only an equal number of men and women were invited to parties. It’s too much trouble to try to strike an even balance, and you don’t want people to have the feeling that they are assigned to someone. Today’s career-oriented people are happier flying solo than they are being stuck with trying to amuse some unamusing fellow guest. Of course, you should always try to have a reasonable balance, but don’t try to match up people.
Unfortunately, many divorced women and widows are still omitted from guest lists, even in what we like to think of as our enlightened times. It is not only kind but also fair to make an effort to include them. After all, they are no less interesting now than when they were married.

Understanding Your Motive in Party

The host motivation for the party has a lot to do with the guest list. See if you can find a good motive for yourself:

• To pay back for invitations you’ve accepted in the past
• To reaffirm friendships
• To show off a new home, painting, furniture, and so on
• To honor someone
• To say thank you to people who’ve helped you with a particular project or problem
• To get to know new neighbors or colleagues
• To generate future party invitations for yourself

I know a woman who travels widely and spends at least two weeks in each destination. She gives a cocktail party the first evening she arrives. The next day she waits for invitations that will keep her busy for the rest of her visit. Don’t be afraid to tell friends that you are giving a party that doesn’t include them. I was pleased to learn, for example, that I was not invited to a cocktail party given by a scientist friend for his colleagues. There would have been, necessarily, a lot of shop talk exclusive to the group and baffling to me. If shop talk is inevitable, the general rule is to invite only those who can participate and/or enjoy it.

Creating the Guest List

A party is only as good as its guests, so consider the chemistry of the group you’re putting together when you make out your guest list. This exercise is entirely subjective, and every host has a private formula. But here’s a list of do’s and don’ts to help you learn some general rules.
DO:

• Think of the party as an opportunity to bring together people who don’t know each other but who will probably enjoy meeting one another.
• Think of the party as an opportunity to bring together old friends who never seem to have enough time to visit with one another.
• Invite people who will appreciate the invitation and will make an effort to contribute to the success of the party.

DON’T:

• Invite just one type of person. A room full of lawyers or doctors is almost antithetical to the very idea of a party.
• Throw in a person or a couple who don’t really fit the group just because you owe them a dinner.
• Invite known adversaries on the theory that it will make the party livelier. It may make the party livelier than you had hoped.

Everybody has his or her own little tricks and preferences when it comes to making up a guest list.
My personal formula, for example, always includes

• A banker, because bankers know a little about a lot of industries and can talk about what’s going on in the economy.
• A journalist, because journalists ask great questions.
• Somebody involved in politics, however tangentially.
• A restaurateur, because the entire world is interested in dining out and in food.
• Someone in marketing, because marketers usually have something interesting to say about trends and tastes and what people are buying.

The best guests are those who know how to sing for their supper. They know that guests as well as hosts have a responsibility to contribute to the party. They will encourage and add to conversation. They are positive and cheerful. You can depend on them. An interesting person who loves to talk—even if it’s about himself—will amuse a handful of people and get others talking as well.