Cocktail Party Welcomes: Some Tips

by Marjorie Dorfman | More from this Blogger

14 Oct 2006 07:49 AM

Preparing for a cocktail party can be stressful; especially in those few moments before your guests arrive and you discover that unsightly carpet stain or something of that ilk. Such mishaps can make you forget names and other details. (If you can't remember where you live, you better go home, because the party you are hosting in that case, is someone else's.)

Take the time to review your guest-list to avoid blanking out on names. In the fluster and flurry of the moment, it can easily happen and often does, and it can be embarrassing when you are dealing with people you have known for years. A refresh will plant the necessary information in your hosting brain and keep it there for a while.

Take some advice from people who make remembering names a business, namely politicians. Richard Nixon, for example, would study the White House guest-list for a half hour before guests would arrive for an event. This way, he would be able to say with the utmost sincerity something like: "How have you been since that rally where we met last time?" He himself in later life said that he had no special gift for faces or names. "I worked at it," he said, "because people were my business." Your party is probably not business, but remembering the names of your guests should still be part of the festivities!

Make sure you extend a genuinely warm welcome to your guests and make them feel at home. Keep a coat rack near the door and designate a spot for purses. Handle gifts you receive discretely. "I already have two of these" and "look what so-and-so gave me" can really make someone who brought you nothing feel exactly the same way.

Make sure all of your guests are introduced to each other on a first name basis. Neither hosts nor guests with or without a few drinks can remember a litany of long last names. First names by their very nature make conversation flow more easily.

Cruise and schmooze yourself and remember to have a good time. If you didn't, then your party wasn't a success and you have the perfect excuse to try again...next year!

Happy Party!

Related Reading:

"Cool Cocktail Parties"

Learn more about Marjorie Dorfman

Marjorie Dorfman is a freelance writer and former teacher originally from Brooklyn, New York.

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