A dinner party with friends can be a great way to celebrate someone's birthday or just a great way of catching up with all of the people that are important to you in your life. It could be a way of introducing your new boss to your sister in the hopes of making a love connection or as a way of making some new friends yourself. But, if you're going to have a successful evening no matter what the reason to get together might be, then you're going to want to make sure that you plan it right.

When you're organizing a dinner party you want to take some time to consider who you're inviting and whether or not you're going to have a good time all talking together. This is usually a smaller affair and you will find that everyone is involved in talking about one thing around the table rather than a standard party where people might be moving between a few different rooms. If you're inviting people that are not all from the same group of friends than you may want to make sure that they all at least have a few things in common. This will keep someone from feeling awkward or the conversation from stalling before dessert.

Every good party needs to have some sort of centre of focus. People will tell you that at a dinner party it should be the food that you're serving. Start with the main dish and plan the rest of the meal and the theme for the evening around this item. You will find that this is a good place to start if you can't decide how formal the dinner should be or whether you should serve hors d'oeuvres before the meal. This also might help you decide how many people you want to invite to the event. If you're serving something complicated than you will likely want to keep it small and won't have so many people that you need stick on badges to learn everyone's names.

Make sure you understand what everyone who is coming to your dinner party is able to eat. Once you get people into your home, it's going to be up to you to make sure they are fed for the night. The best way to ruin a dinner party is to have someone there who can't or won't eat what you're serving.