No. 01

Remember: The Whole Point Is to Have Fun

Take a deep breath and put out the welcome mat

From your host: Helen Ellis

Don’t freak out. When planning a party, don’t waste your time worrying. I promise you, you’re going to screw something up, something’s going to go wrong, someone’s going to do something, and that’s all there is to it. Embrace the disgrace. You’re not going to buy enough bags of ice or you’re going to buy too many bags of ice, and the one leftover bag will loaf like an AP Biology fetal pig in your freezer for months until you man up and sentence it to death by melting at a glacial pace in your sink. You’re not going to buy enough booze or you’re going to buy too much booze and then you’re going to drink that leftover Rosé All Day and drunk dial a friend at 9:00 p.m. on a Wednesday and tell her what you did with your bunkmate after lights out at summer camp. The cheese ball you food-colored Kermit green and molded to look like a four-leaf clover isn’t going to be the big hit you thought it would be. Same goes for the liverwurst pinwheels. Not to mention the shave-your-own-gyro station that nobody touched because they “didn’t feel safe.” Hey, there’s no accounting for taste. You tried something fabulous. Next time, you’ll defrost cocktail weenies, squirt mustard in a ramekin, and be done with it.

Stop worst-case-scenario-ing yourself. Nobody’s going to jump off your roof and miss the pool. Nobody’s going to eat a peanut who’s not supposed to eat a peanut and need an emergency Bic ballpoint tracheotomy in the middle of your bonus room. The worst thing to happen at one of our parties was a woman’s hair caught on fire, and the tarot card reader clapped it out. No, nobody said a word about it to us until the party was over. Olympic gold medalist guests? I think so!

Some guests will arrive early (perhaps catching a glimpse of you halfway into your Spanx, lying prone on the edge of your bed like a Central Park sea lion), and some guests will overstay their welcome (perhaps not taking the hint to leave until you appear in a doorway like Mrs. Doubtfire, your face coated with so much cold cream you look like a lemon meringue pie with eyes). But don’t hold it against them, because these revelers came.

No matter how many times you prod some invitees to RSVP, they won’t. Count on five people you didn’t plan on showing up, and count on ten canceling the day of, right up through the first hour via text or outright calling you “so you can hear how truly sorry” they are. Count on someone coming with a runny nose “that definitely isn’t COVID.” Count on inviting someone you shouldn’t have and forgetting to invite someone you absolutely should have. Apologize, accept apologies, forgive yourself, and move on.

At least one guest will want to “be helpful.” He’ll move a centerpiece, rearrange seating orders, straighten picture frames, and insist on taking off his shoes to protect your carpet. When another guest drops and breaks a glass, he’ll sprint to your pantry, grab a brush and dustpan, drop to his knees, and sweep. This person would rather rodent-proof your kitchen than mingle. And you’re the hostess, not Miss Manners, so just let him do what he needs to do.

Here’s what you need to do: Put out plenty of toilet paper, hand soap, and disposable towels. Dim the lights. You don’t have to rent a bouncy house or hire a DJ to show your guests a good time.

Here are two free tried-and-true game-night activities:

Uncover It! Put twenty items under a blanket. Lift the blanket and let everyone look at the items for one minute. Re-cover the items and give points for what guests remember. “A postage stamp” gets a point. Bonus points for correctly answering “Which First Lady is on the stamp?” and “What jewelry is she wearing?”

Dare Bag! Write down dares and put them in a bag. Guests get points for performing dares according to level of difficulty. Five for opening a window and yelling, “Are you there, Judy Blume? It’s me, [insert your name here]!” Ten for putting on Ray-Bans and white compression socks and sliding Risky Business–style across the room. Fifty for swapping your entire outfit with someone else’s.

Sure, I have a recurring nightmare that there’s a party in an hour and I haven’t prepared, but it’s better than the dream where my teeth are falling out. The truth is: Nobody is coming to your party because they want to have a bad time. So relax. Have the party. I dare you.

No. 02

Break the Ice

Mingle by Design

“Interaction starts conversation and bonding,” says the Virginia floral artist Mary Spotswood Underwood, so for crowds, she likes to plan “paella over a fire, oyster roasts, or cracking crabs.”

Be Curious

“Ask someone where they’re from,” says Today coanchor Craig Melvin. A woman recently answered him with “Alabama.” “I said, ‘War Eagle or Roll Tide?’ It started a conversation.”

Surprise Them

One way Patrick Dunne, proprietor of the New Orleans shop Lucullus, puts people at ease “is to ring the bell in our old bell tower. It puts a smile on guests’ faces as they come up the drive.”

No. 03

Get the Guest List Right

A memorable evening can hinge on whom you invite (and, if it’s a seated dinner, how you arrange them). “My best friend has always advised me to have close friends who are ten years older and ten years younger, and I’ve cultivated that for years,” says the Charlotte boutique owner Laura Vinroot Poole. At parties, “it makes for very interesting conversations across generations. And at the table, I always split up couples and mix the seating. There’s nothing worse than one side of the table discussing golf and the other side discussing preschools.”

Calder Clark, a wedding designer based in Charleston, South Carolina, takes those pointers further: “I hosted at home over the holidays and sat a Deadhead retiree next to a globe-trotting financier femme fatale—you should have heard that convo! It’s all about encouraging spontaneous interaction. A good party needs at least one person who tells wild stories, and another who will take them seriously, mouth agape.”

Patrick Dunne keeps the peace with a dress code. At fetes he throws with his Lucullus colleagues Kerry Moody and Nathan Drewes, “it is understood guys need to ‘dress’—wear at least some kind of jacket,” he says. “They behave better, and are more gallant, even after too much bourbon!”

No. 04

Cue Up the Tunes

Set the Mood

Pardis Stitt, the queen of hospitality at the lauded Birmingham, Alabama, restaurants she co-owns and operates with her husband, Frank, mixes genres on her playlists. “Glass Animals, or R. L. Burnside, or some French hip-hop with MC Solaar, or Grace Jones. So as guests are arriving, they’re like, Okay, this is going to be fun, or It’s going to be calm.”

Get Personal

Alexander Smalls, a South Carolina–born opera singer turned chef and author, concurs: “I make playlists for each of my dinners, with everything from opera to Afrobeat. That music comes out of my childhood. On occasion, we played the piano before dinner, and then played after and sang.”

Liven It Up

Patrick Dunne often opts for live music, with one rule: “We usually set up a local musician in a wicker chair. My caveat is no amplification—guests seem to love the vibes without the tyranny of too much sound.”

No. 05

Take Pleasure in the Planning

Relish dreaming up the details—then stagger their execution to alleviate stress. “If I’m serving spring dinner, I count out silverware, plates, and napkins several days ahead and put a sticky note on them so I’ll know how many I have cleaned, polished, and ironed,” says Peter Patout, a Louisiana and Mississippi Realtor and antiques lover. “That kind of planning extends to every part of my gatherings.”

No. 06

Think of Yourself as a Maestro…

Of course Alexander Smalls thinks in music metaphors. And the best hosts, he says, are like maestros conducting the affair. When a new guest walks in, a host should “grab a few people and introduce them, saying a little something about each person,” he says. “That’s how you get people engaged.” From there, “it’s incumbent upon the host to be present, to help steer the conversation, or to help their guests rise to the occasion. Some people are shy, some people are outgoing, and all of that needs to be managed.” Ultimately, he says, “you can have average food. You can burn this and that and the other, and then ply them with more bourbon and laugh and giggle. But what they’re going to take with them is how you made them feel.”

No. 07

…And Consider Recruiting a Co-Conductor

Smalls often taps either a favorite person or a guest of honor to cohost, “someone who is gregarious and outgoing, who loves to give attention, and who takes the role seriously,” he explains. “At my house, the center of the table is the ‘head,’ and I sit on one side of the center, my cohost sits on the other side, and we take turns dishing out the meal family-style. You’ve been put in that special place to really help to shepherd the evening.”

No. 08

Dress Up a Shortcut

When it comes to party-menu planning, our Southern entertaining experts overwhelmingly agree with hostess extraordinaire Ina Garten’s famous maxim: “Storebought is fine.” But that doesn’t mean any shortcuts you take should be shortchanged visually.

Andrew LaMar Hopkins, a New Orleans artist and bon vivant, typically walks over to Manchu Food Store and orders the shop’s locally beloved fried chicken wings. But then he makes them look as sumptuous as the rest of his spread. “I lay them out,” he says, “on my nineteenth-century blue feather-edge platters.”

Even the Virginia-born tastemaker Bunny Williams isn’t above cutting a corner. As Elizabeth Lawrence, her business and design partner, recalls, “When I first started working for Bunny, we were in the car on the way home from a site visit and we stopped at a KFC so Bunny could pick up potpies for a dinner party she was having. It really stuck with me. It doesn’t have to be a big fancy meal. You can order in Chinese and use your good china. Get tacos and set a pretty table. I learned that early on from Bunny: Just do it.”

As for Pardis Stitt, she cheats at the end of the meal. “I don’t make desserts,” she explains. “I learned from my mom: When my sisters and I were growing up, one of her go-tos was a Sara Lee pound cake, then she would make whipped cream and slice and macerate strawberries to go with it. So I do ice cream sandwiches. Lately they’ve been from Birmingham’s Big Spoon Creamery. I’ll walk around with this silver tray of ice cream sandwiches piled high. And to see guests take it—What is this? There’s just this excitement.” Jamie Meares, the founder of Raleigh’s Furbish home decor, opts for chocolate lava cakes from Domino’s, “heated up just a skosh on a fancy dessert plate with ice cream,” she says. “It amazes everyone, every time.”

No. 09

Stock the Ultimate Southern Bar

From your host: Wayne Curtis

Start with these stellar ingredients that hail from or speak to the South, and along with some basic pantry items (tomato juice, cream, limes, mint, simple syrup, vermouth), you can craft juleps, old-fashioneds, milk punches, Sazeracs, Kentucky mules, Bloody Marys, and dozens of other drinks in a snap. See the essentials here.

No. 10

Brainstorm a Signature Party

A New Year’s Day oyster roast. A Fourth of July lake party. A back-to-school barbecue. Establishing a trademark get-together ensures your friends look forward to it all year long.

Peter Patout’s pals flock to the king cake and Champagne event he holds at his Bourbon Street home the Saturday before Mardi Gras. “I have the house and courtyard open with people flowing in and out, usually in costume,” he says. As for Smalls, “I love giving gumbo parties,” he says. “You hear about farm to table—I like pot to table. And whatever’s in that pot, there’s a story. My cast-iron black pot demands your attention, and it’s full of fresh seafood and duck sausages and okra and a roux that’s been cooking for hours.”

Laura Vinroot Poole puts on “a traditional Swedish smorgasbord like the ones my grandparents were famous for in the 1950s and 1960s,” she says, “with homemade glogg and every kind of pickled herring that you can find in this country. It’s a very fun party, where people tend to over-serve themselves, so it’s dangerous to host every year.”

For a theme that works in any month, take a leaf from the book of New Orleans novelist C. Morgan Babst: “On big nights when it’s hard to get babysitting—Halloween, New Year’s Eve, et cetera—I love to throw a ‘mullet party’: glamorous in the front, goofy in the back. We set up caviar and Champagne in the dining room for grown-ups, pizza bagels and cornhole in the yard for kids. That way everyone, young and old, gets the party they deserve.”

No. 11

Serve Food with a Story

Whatever merry you make, Smalls advises including a recipe with meaning: “Whether it’s Aunt Mildred’s banana pudding, my dad’s smothered crabmeat, or gravy and shrimp over grits—that is a huge opportunity for people to engage beyond just eating what’s on the table. What makes people feel better than sharing life experiences?”

No. 12

Master a Foolproof Party Bite

There’s a reason your favorite hostess has had the recipes for party ham sandwiches, country ham biscuits, and cheese straws dog-eared in her community cookbook for decades. But there’s no reason you shouldn’t improve on those cocktail-sized bites—by combining them. Get the recipe for G&G’s cheese straw biscuits, layered with tender country ham and a swipe of tomato chutney here.

No. 13

Have Bubbles on Hand

Pardis Stitt greets her guests with Champagne—a habit she picked up from Patrick Dunne. “Whether it’s visiting him at his shop or going to his home, that’s what he’s offering you,” she says. “A nice cold Champagne is key. Or pomegranate juice and soda is a really nice, refreshing nonalcoholic option. But Champagne is luxurious and comforting at the same time. There’s just something that always makes me happy about Champagne. From the popping of the cork to pouring it. Bubbles just always make me happy.”

No. 14

Take the Show on the Road

Why not add a field trip to the proceedings? “One of the most fun parties I’ve been to was at the end of March,” Patout recalls. “The alligators and turtles were out, and the native Louisiana irises were blooming. One of my friends hosted a birthday party luncheon, and then had a tour bus pick us all up. Then we went out on a swamp tour with a botanist and a zoologist, who took us to several exotic places in the swamps, including where the native orchid blooms in the cypress trees.”

No. 15

Set the Scene

Get Lit

“Lighting is so important,” says Blake Sams, an event designer and the founder of the Charleston home goods shop Wentworth. “I always have an abundance of candlelight. It offers a natural warm glow to your space. I love using tons of taper candles on a table and placing them throughout my living spaces.” Elizabeth Lawrence goes low: “Lots of tea light candles mixed in to a tablescape set the mood.”

Make Scents

“A space needs to smell good,” Stitt says. “I like to bring a pot of water with rosemary in it to a boil. Not that I want it smelling like a spa, but there’s something very calming about that that I think is nice. Or sometimes we’ll heat oil in a pan and then put some rosemary and lemon slices in that, and then right before people arrive, walk the pan through the room, just kind of giving a little toss to release that steam. It’s a delicious aroma.” The artist and home goods impresario John Derian swears by coupling high candles with low flowers, but warns, “never have scented flowers on the table while eating.”

Bloom the Room

“Prune your garden instead of buying flowers,” C. Morgan Babst suggests. “A single camellia stem looks beautiful in a bud vase in the powder room. Palmetto fronds make a huge impact on a mantel. Put sculptural citrus cuttings in heavy vases. Float magnolia blossoms in a dish of water. Cheer up your kitchen counter with bouquets of herbs.” Lawrence sprinkles “loose arrangements down the table in bud vases,” she says. “The more the better. Whatever’s in season at Trader Joe’s is easy and affordable.” Mary Spotswood Underwood saves the best for last: “I use flowers to tie the look together.”

Don’t Forget the Quirk

Scatter in some conversation starters. “I like a few surprising things on the table,” Lawrence says. “I’ve collected unique salt and pepper shakers for years. Having something unexpected and using things you love make a table setting even more special.” Dunne relies on his mismatched Champagne flutes and wineglasses: “They’re a great way to give tone to a party without being too uppity.”

No. 16

Learn from the Best

A close friend recalls lessons from Julia Reed, the perpetual life of the party

From your host: Keith Meacham

I grew up in Mississippi, where home entertaining was a point of pride. Articles of faith that I learned at my grandmothers’ knees included how to make homemade mayonnaise; why a good hostess always keeps a bottle of Pickapeppa Sauce on hand (to pour over cream cheese for an instant hors d’oeuvre); which Junior League cookbooks should be in a culinary library (Charleston Receipts was number one); when to use paper napkins (never).

But no one taught me more about entertaining than my dearest friend, the late writer and G&G columnist Julia Reed. She and I often amused and sometimes wearied my husband, Jon, with our hours-long conversations to plan the many soirees we threw in the early days of our friendship in 1990s New York. He would roll his eyes as we discussed china patterns or weighed the merits of crabmeat maison versus crabmeat Mornay, at one point even dubbing us the Crabmeat Caucus. Here are just a few of those lessons.

Do Your Own Flowers

The two of us loved our pre-party early morning trips to New York’s wholesale flower market. We’d wake before six, grab coffee and a cab downtown, and hit the Dutch Flower Line. The blooms in season set the palette for the evening, and china and linens followed suit. When we were back home in Mississippi, or later, when I moved to Nashville, we would take snippers in the car and cut butterfly weed, cattails, and Queen Anne’s lace from roadside ditches. I called these our “roadkill” arrangements. They did just fine.

Cook Food That Tastes Good

Julia and I often found ourselves at dinner parties where dishes looked fabulous but didn’t taste particularly good. I remember one night a caterer served steamed Chilean sea bass (all the rage then) sans sauce, and bland vegetables. This occasioned Julia to remember her mother Judy’s first principle of entertaining: Serve something people want to eat. Julia often replicated Judy’s Sunday supper menu: chicken hash over waffles, with a salad of sliced avocado and red grapefruit segments over Bibb lettuce with a lemony dressing. She never hosted one of her “cocktail suppers” without passing ham on biscuits, deviled eggs, pimento cheese sandwiches, and watermelon pickles wrapped in bacon.

Cheat When Necessary

Julia was a perfectionist and always wanted to cook everything herself. That was all well and good when we were running on time. Most often we weren’t. Despite the great conversation and booze, people could get grumpy when dinner ran late, so we “cheated” when necessary. Julia loved to tell the story of a dinner she attended one night at the table of the great Washington, D.C., hostess Susan Mary Alsop, where everyone raved about the spinach soufflé, only to discover it came from a Stouffer’s box. We took that story as permission to pick up Popeyes or Publix fried chicken and serve it buffet style with an array of homemade sides and Sister Schubert’s rolls.

Function in Disaster, Finish in Style

Julia lived by an unofficial motto of her alma mater the Madeira School: FUNCTION IN DISASTER, FINISH IN STYLE. We often had to embrace the sentiment when entertaining. Six years ago this May, Julia and I threw one of our last parties together, to celebrate her new book, Julia Reed’s New Orleans. With our fellow Mississippian Bebe Howorth, we planned a magical Crescent City dinner under the stars in our friends’ gorgeous Magazine Street garden, complete with Japanese silk lanterns, mismatched Indian block-print tablecloths, and odd-patterned china. We never considered it might rain, but by midday, the heavens had opened. It was prime wedding season, and tents were scarce. Rather than scrap our original vision, Julia insisted we carry on. Function in disaster.

We talked someone into renting us a damaged tent to pitch in the muck of the now-soaked garden. As guests arrived, Julia and I maneuvered giant rented shop vacuums across the lawn in our high heels to suck up as much water as possible. We were on edge by the time the party got going. But soon the rain subsided, and we breathed a sigh of relief. No sooner had we let our guard down than swarms of flying termites worthy of Exodus invaded. Our bad luck quickly became a source of hilarity as the termites (thankfully) buzzed to the upper regions of the tent. We kept the Champagne flowing, women kicked off their shoes and let their feet get muddy, and the tent filled with laughter. In other words, we finished in style.

No. 17

Mix Up a Crowd-Pleasing Porch Punch

When the chef and comedian Duane Nutter moved in 2016 from his award-winning gig at Atlanta’s One Flew South to open Southern National in Mobile, he discovered that locals had a soft spot for rum. That gave him an idea: “Make some sweet tea, spike it with a little rum, hang out on the porch, and check out my new city.” Get his go-to recipe that plays nicely with “potato chips, deviled eggs, and Marvin Gaye” here.

No. 18

Favor Your Guests

A surcee at the end of the night surprises and delights. Calder Clark opts for party favors with “a little levity,” she says. “I’ve used cheeky fortune cookies, a hundred-dollar bill hidden under a chair, even a needlepoint ornament made with love by moi.”

Peter Patout’s offerings speak to his Louisiana heritage. “I seem to constantly collect plant cuttings,” he says, “and I give them away to guests who would like them. My guests also love to have a small paper bag of raw sugar from the family mill, tied with a string.”

Or you can give a gift that speaks to the theme at the beginning of the soiree, as Elizabeth Lawrence does: “I am known for my ‘participatory headgear’—fun hats, headbands, masks,” she says. “Some people get really into it and wear them all night and then go home with them to remember the night.”

In any case, consider stocking up on to-go containers. “I’m all about sending people home with food,” says Mariana Barran, the owner of Texas’s Hibiscus Linens. “Either leftovers from the party, or pre-baked cookies.” Alexander Smalls concurs: “When I host, people leave with food. You cannot have a successful party and run out of food, or have guests fighting over the last chicken bone.”