Your Comprehensive Guide to a Fall Dinner Party

To make things easier, we’ve prepared a checklist for your perfect fall dinner party, beginning one month out (we know, we know, but trust us when we say advance planning will make your life much easier).

It’s no secret we’re obsessed with decor, but hear us out: your guest list is THE single most important aspect of your dinner party (after nailing down your date, of course)! Here are a few tips for ensuring your guest list is one for the ages:

• Don’t feel pressured to have an even number of men and women
• Don’t worry about the balance of singles and couples.
• Instead, focus on who you think will get along.
• Unexpected combinations can be the best (i.e. don’t just invite people of the same age and demographic).
• Have a friend that’s a history buff? Have an uncle that’s a history professor? Great! Invite them both.

To some, a formal invite can fill a bit “extra” for a dinner party (but if you’re into them, then go for it; we find the invitation process elegant and fun), go for email. Text messages are hard to track, and you can maintain the same email chain to follow up with details in the weeks leading up to the party in order to keep everything organized.

Once you’ve planned out your perfect guest list (again: mix and match, and don’t be afraid to be creative), do a quick tally on who can and can’t come. Three weeks out, people should have a good handle on their schedule, and hopefully be able to secure childcare, so, last-minute emergencies aside, the guest list should look fairly locked in.

Once you’ve determined a final headcount, reach out to everyone to find out whether there are any dietary restrictions you need to be mindful of. Diets, and even preferences, change all the time, and making your guests comfortable is most important–so whether or not you agree that your friend needs to be on a grain-free diet, you’ll want to accommodate for them so they don’t feel awkward and uncomfortable when the evening comes around–nothing kills a jovial dinner party vibe faster.

You’ve got the guests, you understand what they can and can’t eat, and you’ve nailed down a date. Now: it’s time to plan the menu and then the decor. Why? Because it’s our opinion that they should complement each other–they don’t live separately!

Our Fall Dinner Menu
Hors d’oeuvre: Warm Marinated Castelvetrano Olives
Have these sitting on a coffee table when your guests arrive–we always like sitting with cocktails for 30-45 minutes (but no longer than an hour!) before dinner.

Appetizer: Kale Ribbon Salad with Orange-Thyme Dressing
This hearty salad is our go-to fall dinner party starter, because it’s kosher, vegan and gluten-free, meaning it covers off on most dietary restrictions, and filling enough to sate your guests that don’t eat meat. We recommend making a lot for this very reason.

Main: Porchetta
If your guest list is largely vegetarian or kosher, you can opt for something simple but still delicious like our vegan pasta alla trapanese, but if that’s not a concern, go all in on our stunning porchetta, a fatty, moist pork dish comprised of tenderloin and pork belly. Trust us when we say it’ll be the star of the show.

Side: Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Garlicky Yogurt
It simply isn’t a fall dinner party without sweet potatoes! Adding the garlicky yogurt gives their sweetness the perfect savory balance; this is the type of dinner side we’ll eat again and again, at any time.

Dessert: Plant-Based Cacao Cake with Hibiscus Glaze
Gorgeous, nourishing, and–yes–vegan, this is the autumnal cake to end all cakes. Keep the recipe at the ready, because your guests will ask.

Cocktail: Paper Plane
The fun fizz of the Aperol, the autumnal smoke of the bourbon; the zest of the lemon juice–we’d be hard-pressed to find a more perfect dinner party cocktail.

Our Fall Dinner Decor Picks
If our menu had a color palette, from the cocktail to the cakes, it’d have to be pink and orange. These vibrant sunset hues suit a more neutral shade in the fall, so we like to keep our linens and plating fairly subdued. Our shop picks: Casafina’s white oval platter, Il Buco Vita’s simple dinner plates, Ferm Living’s liqueur glasses, Mepra’s turtle dove flatware, and, in one concession to the color palette, Atelier Saucier’s rainbow burlap napkins, atop Hawkins’ Ivory placemats, and a tablecloth to match.

We’re almost there! A week out, shop for any non-perishable (or less-perishable) items (pastas, olives, so that you don’t need to worry about forgetting them when you’re shopping for the rest of your items closer to the day of. (And yes, keep a running list in your kitchen and check things off as you buy them or if you already have them).

Is there anything worse than realizing you need to do a liquor run the minute your guests are about to arrive? Once you’ve planned your cocktails, stock up on the appropriate liquor, and be sure to buy wines and non-alcoholic options for those that don’t drink.

Another big oops: unveiling your tablecloth the day of your dinner party only to find it’s stained. Be sure to check at least four days out so you can wash or swap if needed.

If you’re not using your everyday flatware, wash that too. If you are, wash it the night before!

Lettuce and other salad items, meats, and more–we like to keep all of that as fresh as possible, while allowing ourselves time to prepare. Shopping three days out generally does it.

Say it with us: you need place cards at a dinner party. It avoids so much awkwardness! Purchase things like place cards at least two days out while also finalizing special touches like planning your playlist (yes, every dinner party absolutely needs music).

If you’re lucky enough to have a designated dining space: set the table, the night before the party. It’s one less thing to worry about! If you’re not, then plan to have the meal before your dinner party either out, at your desk (we don’t usually condone this, but we’ll make an exception), or in front of the TV (another guilty pleasure of ours).

Morning of: DO NOT make any other plans for the day! Even if you don’t need all day to prep and cook, you don’t want to feel rushed. Meditate, relax, and ensure your energy is in the right place to receive guests (trust us, this matters).

Night of: Don’t forget to enjoy yourself! If you’ve prepped sufficiently, things should go fairly smoothly (plus, do not be afraid to ask friends for help if they offer).