Welcome to a post about dinner parties sponsored by Smirnoff, the last in a series of posts around creating the perfect dinner party. Today we are looking for your best or worst dinner party stories. But first, Sponsored Post contributor Linda writes…..
“Just a couple of weeks ago now Kim Kardashian was celebrating her birthday all over the show. Quite literally . She was reportedly paid huge sums of money to appear at her own party. Not just once or twice but seven times.
One can only wonder what the actual birthday dinner was like. You know the ACTUAL party with the friends and family that weren’t paid to appear and just wanted to hang with Kim and wish her a happy birthday. I’m guessing Hollywood party planner, big budget, elaborate guest list and Samantha Ronson as private DJ.
But who needs a big budget when you have Smirnoff ready made cocktails that you can just pour over ice, a great group of friends and something to eat. Heck, pizza will do.
During the last month on Mamamia we have been in full dinner party planning action. We have discussed menus and decor, we’ve chatted about dresses and outfits and we gone through the all important preparation phase...
Today, courtesy of Smirnoff, and because the Kardashian 30th birthday party soirees are officially over, we are asking you to tell us about the best or worst dinner party that you have ever been to.
Smirnoff have a range of ready made cocktails that are ready to drink (and serve) without the fuss and bother of muddling and stirring. Simply pour and enjoy . The cocktail range is perfect for sipping on while getting ready for a big night, perfect for a lazy summer BBQ or perfect for a dinner party so you’re not stuck mixing drinks in the kitchen.
You can choose from the following flavours;
- Vodka Mojito which is a perfectly balanced blend of crisp clean Smirnoff Vodka, Kaffir Lime Liquor and natural mint flavour;
- Grand Cosmopolitan which is a professional shake of crisp clean Smirnoff Vodka, Triple Sec Liquor and a splash of Cranberry juice;
- Pomegranate Martini - a delicious blend of Smirnoff Vodka, pomegranate juice, Meyer Lemon Flavoured Liqueur, and natural lemon flavour.”
What made your dinner party great or er, not so great? Was it the food or the cocktails, the people or the music? Did you end up staying way past the time you were expected to leave or couldn’t you leave soon enough?
[Note: If you would like to know more about how sponsored posts work, please click here. That's also where you can leave comments about sponsored posts in general. Below, we will only be publishing comments relating to the questions asked above.]
Comments
40 Comments so far
Went to a dinner party where the Miss 8 daughter of the household had announced it was the school fete the next day. Dinner guests waited while Mum made several cakes and Hubby entertained his increasingly hungry and drunken guests.
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Hmmmm…most memorable…probably the very first time my partner and I cooked dinner for friends after moving in together. Fiance decided to make a complicated Thai menu and at 1 1/2 hours into the evening, he was still in the kitchen sweating and swearing over the fish cakes while i made very difficult conversation with who were actually his friends. We were both so, so stressed and shirty with each other for days after – especially as our guests are notorious for creating incredble meals, even a simple BBQ at theirs looks like something out of a Donna Hay magazine. Gosh, that was seven years ago now and I’m still not over it!
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Just as long as you are never like the famous ‘Neurotic Housewife’ of French and Saunders fame, your dinner party will always be terrific.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a28qTB1LGSE
Long gone are the days when you have to cook up a five course dinner for fabulous friends. Honestly, the best, most important thing you can do is spend as much time planning the guests as you do planning the menu. When it comes down to it, the best parties are those where the conversation is by turns clever, witty, raucous, wide-ranging and everyone gets involved with their opinion.
When you have great friends gathered, the food doesn’t really matter. I’ve had more fun hosting a spontaneous pizza and cocktails party, or those times when parties seem to just form because everyone has stayed after a barbecue lunch, than I have organising sit-down formal dos.
That said, the best dinner of all was one that lasted three days. It began as a dinner party with about 10 or so people, involved serious flirting between two of the guests, became a sleep-over when too much wine was imbibed (during which time another guest outed themselves as gay to raucous cheering from everyone), included some late-night skinny-dipping in a freezing pool (it was the middle of August) and ended up lasting until Monday lunchtime with everyone pitching in and doing some housework to clean-up after themselves.
Legendary. For the life of me, I can’t remember what I cooked.
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I had one last night that was such a stress! After getting home at 6:30pm (with the guest arriving at the same time) I found the kitchen in a pigsty after the darling children had helped themselves to afternoon tea! My guest then excused himself to use the bathroom at which point I discovered that my partner had turned the plumbing off earlier in the day and had forgotten to turn it back on! Then I realised I’d run out of bacon for a bacon pasta dish and that my organic eggs (that had come straight from our own chooks) had gone off! Hilarious! Luckily the guest didn’t seem to notice anything amiss – perhaps he was bought up in a large family with a working mum too!
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I love dinner parties – I have them at least once a month. I am a dedicated foodie and so is my boyfriend. He’s a fabulous cook and we generally split up the meal between us. We pour through cookbooks and go to the markets in Everleigh to get the best produce.
The only thing that’s a little sad is that we hardly ever get asked to any ourselves … I wonder if it’s because we go to such trouble. One friend said we were a little too good!
Or is it that people are just so busy and not into organising such things? I get the feeling that we are unusual.
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I agree – we always seem to be the givers but never get invited ourselves.
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Same here!
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I always bring my own drinks because I hate wine and most people don’t have cocktails at their parties – it’s always wine. Can I also make a request that people who have dietary requirements let the host know BEFORE you arrive?
I once had a couple over who FORGOT to tell me they were vegan until I was about to serve dinner – a roast!
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I never knew you could buy pre-mixed cocktails. Now I can be all sex & the city without having to measure out ingredients which is good because who has time to do that when you’re having people over.
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My best ever dinner party was one rainy summer weekend when we invited our friends over and we had an indoor picnic on the floor with baguettes and smoked salmon and champagne and strawberries.
SO much fun.
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Yum…. sounds delish!
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I love dinner parties! I have one every christmas and it’s always fun! People can be so rude though. Turn up late, bring extra people you didn’t invite. The number one worst one I had was when I invited a friend of my bf who was a chain smoker and he sat outside and smoked THE WHOLE NIGHT and we had to bring the food out to him. Eventully people felt sorry for him and everyone was outside. All that time I spent making the table look pretty was for nothing. I do find a really good way to get guests excited and interested is to make them feel involved, I ask people to bring a wine, cheese or even a couse and they like it because its not just your party anymore.
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I always bring wine, and always ask if I can bring anything, but to be honest? I hate being told to bring a course. I entertain all the time, and when I go out I don’t want to have to cook beforehand. Also, half the time you don’t know how many/dietary requirements etc.
Pot luck type things are different of course, where everyone contributes.
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One thing that can just ruin a party as the host, are people who have rsvp’d “yes” calling up at the last minute with a lame reason to cancel. It’s horrible to see your party shrinking, and honestly, can be quite hurtful.
I’ve been guilty of blowing off parties at the last minute for no better reason than I just can’t be bothered, but I have taken my medicine on this one, and now if I’ve said I’ll be there I suck it up and go even if I’m not totally feeling like it. Usually end up having fun anyway.
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yes! I hate that! Now that everyone has mobile phones you can just text and even 5 minutes before you’re due to arrive!
Makes it impossible to cater when people are so rude.
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I’ve never really been a bbq/dinner party person. But the best pain in the arse effort I’ve seen was this show about a feast recreation that Shannon Bennett (I think) did. It was recreation of some feast from France that was legendary, and he brought in all these specialty ingredients (think cockscombs, uber foie gras, the works) and matched them with amazing French wines. Being an old school French menu, it was REALLY heavy on meat and meat products. It cost an absolute bomb, for him and his staff to do and for the people he served. They served it in groups of about 10 people, and it was a publicised menu. So of course some vegan showed up and demanded an all vego menu WHEN THEY GOT THERE.
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aw i hate when people say ‘of course a vegan/vegie showed up and ruined it!’ because there are only a small amount of veg*ns making the rest of us look bad, and they are, in fact, assholes in general, not just in diet.
i always feel like i need to go ‘i’m really nice though!’ ha ha…as i’ve just done.
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This was just insane though, I think the seats cost the punters about $500 each or so, and the whole idea of it it was that it was as close to a re-enactment of this dinner that Careme or one of the other legends had done. Then these idiots rock up and go “Oh, by the way, veo please”. It wasn’t like it was normal service in the restaurant!
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yeah i know, it’s just we seem to have a higher concentration of idiots for some reason? weird. i’m always annoyed when vegans/vegetarians are causing drama.
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I hear you! If you have a special dietary aversion or allergy for Gods sake let the host know as soon as you can. Not on the night when you arrive!
We go to dinner parties a fair bit, and as soon as I accept an invitation I let the host know straight away that I dont eat fish. Fish is usually too tricky for people to cook for a large group anyway, and a lot of people dont eat it so its not something I think many people would serve, but its better to be safe than hungry!
Dont start me on wedding receptions that serve fish, we were at one where nobody at our table at fish…… we’ve been to a few of them and we had to visit McDonalds on the way home each time! Such a waste of the hosts money paying for food that nobody ate.
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My best dinner party was the one I had at my house last week. My best friends, a great vibe and Thai take aways
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That’s my kind of dinner party! Cocktails and takaway. yum.
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I had some of hubby’s work friends over for dinner. As I wanted to impress I made vanilla bean pannacotta. They turned out of their moulds beautifully and were artfully arranged on a plate with strawberries waiting to be served. I had told the guests not to fill up too much on dinner as there was a beautiful dessert waiting for them.
After about 10 mins I returned to the kitchen to get the dessert only to find my cat on the bench licking her chops. She had scoffed one entire dessert and had taken nibbles at three of the remaining five. Cat got the boot, and I returned with 6 Magnums from the freezer – and thank god I had them there as they were on special that week. I couldn’t bring myself to explain the situation and they probably thought I was bonkers for such a lead up to a Magnum (though they are yummy!).
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Love it, that made me laugh so much! Great ingenuity.
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That just gave me the biggest laugh as well, and I needed it today .
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I went to a Halloween-themed dinner party last month…cue pumpkins, gravestone decorations and more. The invite said to dress scary. I did. Turns out I was the only one who got the memo and in all the photos I look like the creepy emo chick next to all the nice, balanced people. Awesome.
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Ha like Bradley I have a gluten free, everything-free friend who is a total nightmare to have over for dinner!
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My worst dinner party was when I thought one roast chicken was going to be enough to go around for 6 adults… it was really awkward as they were our new neighbours and the dessert wasn’t very substantial either!
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The last dinner party I went to was for a friends farewell it was great because I met a guy that I’m still seeing now but also sad saying goodbye to my friend!
I’m having a summer beach BBQ next weekend and I’m going to buy those pommegrante martini’s for it!
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My worst dinner party was when I cooked a barbecue not knowing all my guests were vegetarians. Enough said
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We’d just completed some renovations on the house and we decided to invite my wife’s BFF and her husband around for dinner.
Wanting to make a good impression, as I was doing the cooking, I rang the BFF to ask if there were any special dietary requirements. I was “told” don’t bother doing a roast as her husband didn’t like roasts. If I was serving steak, her husband only eats the finer cuts of meat, so nothing with a bone in it would be acceptable.
He found sausages way too greasy for his delicate stomach and wasn’t overly fond of salads in any form. Don’t BBQ as her husband couldn’t handle any nasty burnt bits on his meat. If I was serving fish, he would only eat salmon or barramundi. He would eat sea scallops, but only if cooked properly in the French style.
He would drink red or white wine, and two particular brands were mentioned as those that he preferred. He would drink beer, but only imported varieties. His favourite was Corona. Must be served with lime. Don’t dare taint it with a slice of lemon !
At this stage I was rather pissed off, wishing that we had not bothered to extend the invitation.
Come the night of the dinner it rained like mad and the BFF and hubby arrived drenched to the bone, bitching about having to go out on such an appalling night. As all of the floor coverings were brand new I asked for the removal of footware. This didn’t go down well with hubby. Sitting at the bar for a drink BFF started moaning about the spotlights being to harsh for her eyes. Wishing to be a gracious host, the lights were switched off.
Next, the barstools were too hard on her delicate back. I obliged with a cushion.
We had barely finished our first drink when BFF requested food. She then proceeded to open up every drawer and cupboard in the new kitchen to have a sticky-beak before checking out the contents of the fridge.
She and hubby complained about the meal that was served. This was slightly overcooked, that was slightly undercooked. The white could have been a little less chilled.
My wife and I haven’t asked them back. Oh, and to rub salt into the wound…the grog that they brought with them went home with them.
Needless to say, the BFF is not quite as BF as she was before the night of the dinner. Bitch !
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If only I’d had a large value sized bottle of Smirnoff at hand to get rid of the nasty taste that the evening had left in my mouth !
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You know what Bradley…you deserve it…that was so entertaining…I love most of your posts…thank you for the laughs. xx
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I’m with you Lola – Bradley I have been LOVING your input on Mamamia, you always make me giggle.
Keep them coming!
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How rude of them! I must admit my BF has a limited list of food that he eats (we are working on making it longer) but at least he will eat BBQ and doesn’t bitch about what he is served.
If you are going to someones house and they are going to the trouble to cook you dinner …you just eat it!
My mum was brought up to eat everything on her plate. She went out to dinner with her Aunt and Uncle when she was about 10 and was reminded again to eat eveything on her plate. SO she did …including the orange rind. The plate was left spotless lol
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aah, me too, my girlfriend is a bit picky. we joke that it’s easier to cater for me (i’m a vegetarian) as i eat more than she does! but she’s slowly getting better, and will generally suck it up and eat what she’s served at dinner parties, good girl.
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Jeebus!
If I got given a list like that, I’d purposely do stuff to freak them out.
I’ve heard of some great “allergies” in my time. My favourite was mayonnaise. Not that they could tell me what exactly it was that they couldn’t have in the mayonnaise.
If they preferred whatever drinks, BYO, I say!
Should’ve busted out a tin of spam or something for him. What a nightmare!
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Like I say…they’ve never been asked back. Although the hint has been dropped several times. I just pretend to be slow on the uptake !
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Psht, I’d say, “Hey, it’s your turn now, isn’t it? By the way, I’m now vegan, have discovered I’m lactose intolerant and my tongue is very sensitive to anything too hot or too cold.”
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OMG! I have dinner parties at least once every couple of months and have done so for 15 years, and I have NEVER heard of such rude, horrible people. Apart from all the other stuff “the white could have been a little less chilled”? WTF? It says a lot for your wife’s character that she is still friends at all with her not quite BFF. That night must have felt like a lifetime.
My rule, which I’m militant about passing on to my kids, is that if someone has gone to the trouble of inviting you and cooking for you, then you eat what’s put in front of you, unless its life threatening (my son has a nut allergy). You eat it, even if its shit on a stick and you say thank you, that was lovely. End of story. I’m happy to cater for food preferences, allergies, sensitivities, etc, but tell me first. Don’t tell me as I’m about to plate up.
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