Hosting 101: How to Create a Fall Dinner Party for Eight People

Fall is the perfect time to gather with family and friends, using the warm, cozy energy to bring brightness to the dark evenings and celebrate the harvest. We believe hosting is an art form; setting an intentional environment for your dinner party is essential to creating good energy and memories for years to come. 

Ready to host your own dinner party? While the meal is an integral part of the event, it’s also important to consider the setup and activities to supplement it.

The Setup

The first step is determining whether or not your dinner party will have a theme. Here are a few options you could consider for fall:

• The Harvest Table: This theme is inspired by candlelit dinners in the wine country of Tuscany or Napa. Dress an extended table in natural linen runners, with gourds, fresh figs, and foliage running down the center. Add tall ivory tapers to brass candlesticks, and serve your wine from a vintage decanter. Complement the dinner with soft jazz or Italian music.
• Noir et Or: Make your evening dramatic with a black and gold theme. Set the table with black chargers, gold-rimmed glassware, and flatware with a gold finish. Hints of deep burgundy will tie the theme together, with flowers in bud vases placed in the spread. Allow a modern instrumental playlist to play in the background.
• Late-Season Garden Party: The elegance of a summer garden party, but fall-themed. Set a long table on the balcony, lawn, or in a greenhouse. Add cream linens and flower arrangements with a palette of deep red, sage green, and dusty pink. Incorporate vintage glassware, and keep cashmere wraps nearby for guests to warm up, as needed. Set the tone with a soundtrack of acoustic string instruments.

If you decide on a more general fall theme, incorporate seasonal colors like orange, green, yellow, and red into your decor. Add naturally-dyed fibers, leather placemats, and dried botanicals to emphasize the made-in-Vermont theme. Decorative gourds and pumpkins from local farms and orchards are a great finishing touch.

Be intentional with your seating arrangements. Use seating cards to sit people next to those you know they’ll strike up a conversation with, even if they don’t know each other. They might find a connection they didn’t know existed.

The Menu

Once you decide on your theme, it’s time to create the menu. Your menu should bring your guests on a journey, and it should feel both cohesive and delicious. A complete menu includes a drink, appetizer, main course, and dessert. Luckily, the fall season offers a range of seasonal food and drink that will be ideal for creating a strong menu. 

Create a meal that fits the energy of your dinner party while considering food allergies and preferences. Nothing is worse than a dinner party where you can’t eat! As the host, it’s your responsibility to make sure all of your guests are taken care of.

Here are a few sample menus we recommend for a fall dinner party:

Prefer not to worry about the cooking? Here are a few local caterers we recommend for your dinner party:

• Great Northern Catering
• Pozé Catering
• Sugarsnap Catering
• The Roving Feast
• Vermont Farms Catering

Once you finalize your menu, you’re nearly ready!. The last thing to consider are activities to do as a group.

Planned Activities

A dinner party isn’t just a meal; it’s an event. Choosing an after-dinner activity is a great way to keep the energy flowing. When planning an activity, it’s important to understand your guests and the type of interactions you want to foster. For example, if your dinner is more relaxed, you won’t want to change the energy completely into a high-energy activity.

Here are a few activity ideas, based on the intentions of your dinner party:

• Relaxed: Set up a game table with bridge, mahjong, or backgammon, playing for pleasure rather than points.
• High-Energy: Channel your inner sommelier or distiller, hosting a wine or whiskey tasting challenge where guests form teams for a friendly blind-tasting competition.
• Conversational: Bring guests outdoors to a backyard campfire to chat and enjoy libations. Pair it with a “savory s’mores” station built from artisanal charcuterie ingredients, such as aged cheeses, cured meats, and fig jam on fine crackers.
• Creative: Invite guests to a floral arranging workshop led by a local florist, where guests design a seasonal centerpiece from autumn blooms, foraged greens, and branches.
• Artistic: Host a Paint and Sip led by a local artist, with premium wines and an easel set up for each guest. Guests take their finished canvas home as a keepsake.

Dinner parties are a great way to share food, stories, and laughter with the people you love. Create a desired atmosphere and plan a menu and activities to complement it, and you’ll be ready for your next hosting event. 

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