Tips for Hosting a Sophisticated New Year’s Soirée
Hosting a sophisticated New Year’s Soiree is such a fabulous and fun idea! While you may feel comfortable with the overall concept and idea of how you would like your soiree to look, these three tips from Southwest realtor Annie Hagstrom are often overlooked and can truly make your soiree stand out as the best event of the year:
Keep Dietary Restrictions in Mind
When setting your menu, show how much you really value each guest by keeping their specific food dislikes, preferences, and dietary restrictions in mind. It can be truly touching to guests that you set a menu with their personal needs in mind. Additionally, if you aren’t already aware of every guest’s dietary needs, you can always ask on the invites!
Include Thoughtful Decor and Decorations
You don’t want to over-decorate at your New Year’s Soiree, but thoughtful and sophisticated New Year’s decorations are a must! Carnations are an ideal flower to decorate with on New Year’s as they are the birth flower of January and live flowers are a symbol of good tidings and fresh beginnings for the year to come.
Additionally, a well-stocked bar cart is not only great for offering up personalized cocktails, but it can also be a decoration in its own right if you stock it with festive glassware, cocktail tools, and subtle New Year’s decorations. When you start to plan out your tablescape, you might want to consider adding adorable festive details like the British “Christmas Cracker.”
Track Gifts and Conversation Points
After your Soiree event, it’s time to start thinking about thank you cards. The sooner you get started on writing your “thank you’s” the easier it is to remember details of the party you can thank people for. Your guests will surely be impressed if you are able to thank them for the specific bottle of wine they brought, comment on how you loved the hints of XYZ in the glass you tried, and truly enjoyed the conversation you shared about (fill in the blank here).
If you think you will struggle to remember such details after your sophisticated New Year’s Soiree, you’re not alone! It can be helpful to create a note on your phone and write a few quick words about what each guest brought and spoke about occasionally (while no one is watching you too closely) to refer back to.