By now, you know that I love hosting friends in my home! Themed parties, dance parties, dinner parties...all of the parties! After my trip to Spain with my friend Chandler, I knew that we had to host a Spain-themed dinner party to share a little bit of our experience with our friends (and to showcase the adorable ceramics I bought in Sevilla, of course!).

I talk to a lot of people who tell me that they're scared to host a dinner party (or any party!) and want to know how I'm so comfortable hosting....well, practice makes perfect! 

It looks like I'm great at hosting, and this video is fun and helps me remember such a fun night with friends, but what it DOESN'T show, is that before dinner, my oven was smoking and we had to delay everyone with sangria in another room while we figured it out in the kitchen! Ha! It wasn't pretty, but it's a fun joke now with that group of 8 friends! Moral of the story: don't worry if it's not perfect! Other moral of the story: don't let your friends drip oil in the bottom of your oven. ha! 

One of our favorite meals in Spain was at a beachclub in Ibiza! You can read about our food experiences in Barcelona, Ibiza, and Sevilla, but we chose to recreate this specific meal because of the story that went with it...we spent wayyy too much money on it! haha! We drank a lot of sangria, and we ate burrata cheese with almost every meal in Spain, so we knew that we had to start with those two things!

There are so many ways to host a dinner party, and it can be as complex or as simple as you want to make it, but there are three things you might want to have to host your dinner party: 

Theme

You definitely don't have to have a theme for your party, but if you're a hosting newbie, a theme makes menu planning simple and your guests will know to alert you if they have specific dietary restrictions. You don't have to go overboard with a theme, but your menu can have one or two nods to the theme, and the decor can be neutral or have a hint of the theme woven in (like my new dishes from Spain!).

Guests

Duh! First, decide on a number. If you've never made dinner for a group before, start small! The number of chairs at your dining table is also an easy way to determine the number of guests you should have for your first few events. For this party, we had 8 guests, and it was a perfect number. Who should you invite? I hosted a "plus one" dinner party earlier this year and that's a great method to make new friends! Think about if you want your guests to know each other already, if it's a group of your best friends, or if it's a group of people from a specific activity that you're involved in.

Help

You need help! Ask one trusted friend to be your co-host or wing-woman. You'll need help preparing your dishes, answering the door and greeting guests while still cooking, and many more! It's so helpful to have a friend with you...and it's just more fun!