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Dinner Party Checklist

Dinner Party Checklist

Updated on: Mar 20, 2024

Dinner parties can be an excellent way for you to reconvene with close friends and catch up on each other's lives. It is also an event where you can relax and unwind to destress from a hard week. However, planning a dinner party can be a little complicated, but the members at Easy Event Planning are here to help you! Our dinner party checklist will make the planning of a dinner party less stressful and help you host one of the best ones you will ever have!

We’ve provided a guide on how to plan a dinner party that covers everything from how far in advance to buy supplies to what you need to do the day of a dinner party! This template will help you budget your time and easily guide you through each step in order so all you have to worry about is enjoying the party!

Download our checklist here

5 Reasons to Love Our Dinner Party Checklist

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1. Automatic Timeline

How long does it take to plan a dinner party, you ask? We believe that there is no fixed time frame that will work for everyone. Since everyone has their own specific situations and timeframes, we created a checklist that will help you count down the days till the dinner party.

You should first coordinate with your guest to find a date and time for the dinner party. By doing this early you can figure out how much time you have to plan. Once the date and time are established, you can use the day you start planning for the start date and input the end date as the day of the event on your personalized dinner party checklist. This will help you plan and make sure you have everything taken care of before the big day.

2. Visuals

Our template is formatted to help you easily see what tasks need to get done, and which should have higher priority.

  • Find the perfect decor? Check the box in the row for choosing a venue, and it will turn green. This helps you visually spot which tasks are still outstanding.
  • Did you get caught up with your busy schedule? If you start to approach a due date, it will turn yellow. If it passes without completion, it will turn red. This will help you prioritize tasks.

3. Shareable!

You should ask for help from any of the guests who are willing to collaborate in planning the dinner party. This would help relieve some of the stress of planning by yourself. Also, getting input from another person can help generate ideas that would make the dinner party much more fun. If you are planning with friends or your special someone? You can share the template with whomever you wish via Google Drive. Everyone will be on the same page, in real-time! Multiple people can also edit at the same time.

4. Helpful Links

The template doesn’t just help you plan your time, it connects you with great resources in a single click.

  • Want to survey your friends to find the best time to hold your dinner party? Links to useful websites and apps are included.
  • Want to find the best decorator? Easily find every service - from venues and caterers to DJs and decorators - you need in one place.
  • Need to order supplies? We’ve got you covered. Just click!
  • Want to get the creative juices flowing with some fun party tips and ideas? We’ll link right to the articles you need.

5. Customizable

This is no generic planning guideline that will result in a memorable dinner party. So instead, we provided some suggestions for tasks that will help you create your customized dinner party checklist.

How to Use Our Dinner Party Checklist

Simply click the download button below to get started. We have created a step-by-step guide to take you through using our checklists: how to share your checklists with fellow planners, how to add/edit/delete tasks, how to sort/filter/reorder tasks, and more.

Dinner Party Checklist: Conclusion

There's a lot of work that comes with planning a dinner party, which can get pretty chaotic if things aren't preplanned. At Easy Event Planning, we want to make planning your next dinner party go as smoothly as possible! Our customizable template will help to make sure all your plans are in order before the event. If you enjoy using this checklist, you’ll love our planning tools for other events!

Written by Bryk Li; Contributor: Maaike Hassman

Maaike Hassman

University of Iowa

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