Organizing a Progressive Dinner Party

Organizing a Progressive Dinner Party

A delightful way to spend an evening with friends; organizing a dinner party can be as simple or elaborate as you like! Progressive dinner parties can be as simple or elaborate as your imagination! They can include many people or as few as two.

Just what is a progressive dinner party?

The dinner involves everyone going from home to home (or restaurant to restaurant), and enjoying a different course of the meal at that location.

What to Do First:

1. Decide how many households or restaurants you will include.

2. Set the number of dinner courses.

3. Schedule the time to be spent at each home or restaurant, and travel time. You might allow 30 minutes for appetizers, five minutes travel time to the next home, 35 minutes for the soup or salad and so on. Of course, the travel times will depend upon the distances to each location.

4. Map out the course of travel. You may want to begin and end at the same house, so people can share rides to the other locations.

5. If in homes, tell each participant what course they will be serving and how much time will be allowed at their home. Each course should be prepared ahead of time, and left to chill in the refrigerator or warm in the oven. This allows for each couple to present their part of the dinner without undue stress.

6. When the details are set, send out the confirming invitations.

A simple three-course dinner can be accomplished easily. Allowing an hour at each location makes for a less-rushed affair. Soup and salad at the first, a main course at the second and dessert at the third, is still a nice eveninig, and a lot easier to organize.

Whatever the scope of the progressive dinner party, large or small it can be a wonderful opportunity to enjoy friendship and fun!

Great! It's a progressive dinner party!

Source: The 78418 Grapevine, a local bi-weekly newspaper for Padre Island. Contact g_vine@swbell.net, (361) 779-1200.