If you have a big garden, why limit your dinner parties to a cramped dining room? Do something different, be unique, and take your guests outside! With a few simple preparations, you can throw a dinner party in the sun and give your guests a meal to remember.
In this guide, we’ll look at some top tips for throwing an outdoor dinner party, along with the pros and cons of eating outside.
Benefits of Dining Outdoors
Eating outdoors will give you a taste of Mediterranean dining in your own backyard. When you go on vacation to Greece, Spain, or Italy, you don’t spend your time cramped inside stale restaurants, stuffing your face with feta and olives as you wipe the sweat from your forehead and long for the meal to be over.
You step outside, get some fresh air, and enjoy the last of the day’s sunshine. In addition to that Mediterranean flair, you’ll also get all of the following benefits.
- Naturally Soothing: Being around nature is soothing. It relaxes you, puts you at ease. Your stress levels will drop and your anxiety will follow, and that’s just what you need when you’re stepping out of the chaos of the hot kitchen. Throwing a dinner party can be chaotic but serving and eating the food outdoors will take that stress away.
- Less Mess: Dinner parties can be messy affairs. Food will be slopped, drinks will be spilled, and your carpet will be worse for wear by the end of the night. If you’re dining outside, you don’t need to worry about any of that. You can just brush the crumbs onto the lawn and leave the spills and stains alone.
- It’s Something Different: Everyone wants to be different. You don’t want to throw a dinner party that is exactly the same as every dinner party you’ve had before. You want a party that your guests will remember, one that is different, unique—an outdoor location is perfect.
- You Don’t Have to Worry About Your House: A dinner party isn’t just about preparing and cooking great food. You always want your house to look great, and the more houseproud you are, the longer you will spend cleaning, rearranging, and preparing. But if you’re throwing it outdoors, you don’t need to worry about any of that. Just clean the toilet, clear a path to it, and keep your kids and pets under strict orders to be quiet and clean.
- More Room: Unless you live in a large city apartment, there’s a good chance that you will have more space in the yard than your dining room. It means that you don’t need to file all of your guests into a single room and then squeeze them together. As long as you have a table large enough, they can all dine freely and won’t be sitting shoulder-to-shoulder.
- Pandemic Friendly: Being in close proximity with lots of diners is never a good idea during the middle of a pandemic, but it’s much better if you’re outside. Viruses don’t circulate as much and so the risk of infection is much lower. Thankfully, we seem to be over the worst of COVID right now, but it’s not going away, and if we ever have another outbreak, an outdoor dinner party is a great way to entertain your guests without seriously risking their health. For extra protection, make sure they are all tested before they arrive.
What You Need to be Aware Of
Although there are clearly lots of benefits to dining outdoors, there are a few downsides as well, including:
- Weather Changes: Dinner parties are usually arranged several days or even a few weeks in advance. People are busy, and they need lots of notice. But while you can guarantee that you will be available on a certain day in the future, you can’t guarantee that the weather will behave. If it’s too wet, windy, or cold, that dinner party will quickly turn into a nightmare.
- Insects: Wasps, bugs, ants—insects will invite themselves to your dinner party and could create chaos for you and your guests. You can prepare for this, though. Just use some natural bug repellants and make sure all of the guests are adequately equipped.
- Temperamental Guests: Some guests burn easier than others, some get cold much quicker. You will need to account for this and make sure they have lots of sun cream or blankets. You don’t want them to sit and suffer throughout the night, as they might be too polite to say anything.
- Toileting Needs: If your main goal is to prevent your guests from being in the house, it’s worth remembering that they will need to use the toilet at some point. You will still have to let them in the house, and that may mean that they will be dragging mud or other detritus through your hallways.
Tips for Throwing the Best Patio Dinner Party
You’ve seen the pros and cons, you’ve decided that you still want to go through with your outdoor dinner party—now it’s time to set the scene, invite the guests, and enjoy!
Here are a few top tips to make sure the night runs smoothly.
Check with Your Neighbors
Before you invite the guests, check with your local ordinances to make sure you can actually throw an outdoor party and to see what your limits are. If there are no such issues, you should still consult with your neighbors.
If you have no intention of playing music and think that the party will be over before midnight, you should be fine. Even the grumpiest neighbors surely can’t complain about a little laughing and chatting coming from several yards away. But if you’re very close by or will be playing loud music, it’s best to let them know and make sure they’re okay with it.
Of course, you can also just invite them. The neighbors can’t complain if they are the ones making the noise!
Prepare Your Guests for the Weather
Don’t force your guests to sweat or shiver through the meal. If it’s hot, provide them with some shade and fans. If it’s cool, give them blankets and place a firepit or heater nearby. And let them know that the dinner will be held outdoors so that they can dress appropriately.
Place jugs of water on the table to quench their thirst and give them access to the restroom and handwashing facilities.
Set the Scene
Choose your dinnerware and drinkware carefully, and don’t be afraid to decorate the table with flowers, candles, and other decorative items. Don’t simply throw a tablecloth on top and then add some basic white plates.
You need to be a little more creative when it comes to outdoor dining, and that often means opting for rustic tones and avoiding too many white spaces and bright colors.
The food itself should also provide some of the color, from bowls of salads and fresh vegetables to jugs of juice and wine.
Get the Right Furniture
You want your guests to be comfortable, but you also need furniture that is durable, easy to clean, and doesn’t need to be stored away every night. You could be forgiven for thinking that the only way to throw an elegant dinner party is to bring your inside furniture outside, but there are some great collections that provide both elegance and durability.
The Great Bay collection is the perfect example. It’s like having your very own fine-dining bar or restaurant on your patio, and there are multiple finishes and styles to choose from.
Take a look at these tips on buying outdoor furniture for more information.
Grab and Go
Outdoor dining is made for meze-style Mediterranean fare. Forget about the stuffy three-course meals served on neatly ironed tablecloths and with silver flatware. Instead, fill big serving bowls and platters with mounds of fresh and colorful food and let everyone serve themselves.
It’s a gathering, a time to chat, laugh, and eat—it should be ordered and strict. Do it like the Italians and the Greeks and fill that table with food!
Finish with Some Games
When the food has been eaten, the jugs have been emptied, and everyone is sufficiently satiated, it’s time to clear the plates and place some games on the table instead.
Whether you’re playing classic board games like Trivial Pursuit, opting for some adult card games like Cards Against Humanity, or keeping it simple with Poker, games are the perfect way to end the evening. They keep those hands and minds busy as the conversation—and the wine—continues to flow, ensuring that everyone is not sitting around in awkward silence waiting for the night to end.
If your friends are much younger, fitter, and not very excited about the prospect of playing card games or board games, pick up some lawn games instead. You can play giant games of Jenga or Darts. There are even lawn-game variants of beer pong!