Engagement Party

Once you've made the decision to become engaged, you should tell your parents, family members and close friends about your marriage plans before making a formal engagement announcement. This is usually done in the local newspaper, although you can also send out announcements in the mail if you wish. When all the announcements have been made, wedding, marriage, engagement announcements declare that it's time for the party!

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Planning The Menu
Your engagement party can be as formal or informal as you like. You may decide to have a casual dinner at a restaurant with friends to celebrate the occasion, or you and your parents may prefer to host a party at home. Again, this can be anything from a casual lunch to a more formal cocktail party.

The type of engagement party you give will influence the menu. This is something you should plan as soon as possible. Even if you will be using caterers or having the party at a restaurant, you will need to know the available menu options. If you are giving the party at home and prefer to do your own food preparation, you will need to start browsing through recipes to decide on the menu and even test some dishes in advance if you have not tried them out before. Use the Internet to find party menu recipes.

For a sit-down meal you will need at least two and preferably three courses, while for a party such as a cocktail party that does not include a full meal you will need plenty of snacks such as hors d’oeuvres and, of course, cocktails. Many recipes for interesting hors d’oeuvres and cocktails are available in recipe books and on the Internet. As they may require ingredients that you don’t usually keep in your pantry or wine cellar, make a list of your requirements and buy them as soon as possible to avoid last minute panic.

Announcing The Party
When you have made a decision about the type of engagement party you want, it’s time to send out the invitations. They should include the name of the person hosting the party, the venue, the date of the party and the time from when you want guests to start arriving. You will know some of your guests as couples, and can address the invitation to both of them. Unless you are seriously restricted as to numbers, single people should also be given the option of bringing a friend or partner to the engagement party. Include an RSVP date and contact details for the reply.

Make it easy for your guests to decide what to wear by specifying the type of engagement party on the invitation. If it’s a casual gathering around the pool they will know to bring swimwear, and if it’s an evening cocktail party they will be aware that the dress will be more formal. If people will be coming from out of town, the inclusion of a map giving directions to the party venue is helpful. Send the invitations from two to eight weeks in advance of the engagement party and prepare a gift list in case guests want help with deciding what to give you. When all that is done, you and your helpers can start planning the engagement party.

Celebrating With Cocktails
A cocktail party is a wonderful way of celebrating your engagement, especially if you have a large number of guests to invite. It creates a friendly atmosphere and gives you a chance to move around and mix with everyone without having to think about serving a sit-down meal. You also don’t have to worry about whether the guests you have seated next to each other or across from each other will be compatible. At a cocktail party, people can always move on and find someone else to talk to.

While in theory a cocktail party has a starting time and is usually supposed to end about two hours later, these times are not set in stone. This flexibility allows people who may have other appointments to drop in for a short time, and also creates an interesting and constant flow of arrivals and departures. Even though you should be able to relax and enjoy your engagement party as much as possible, keep an eye on your guests to make sure they are also having a good time. If you see a guest standing alone, spend a few minutes chatting with him or her, and then find someone else to take your place before you move away. Paying this type of attention to your guests is all part of being a good host, and will help to make your engagement party enjoyable for everyone.

Hors d’Oeuvres
No cocktail party is complete without hors d’oeuvres or appetizers, and your engagement party should be no exception. A French term, “hors d’oeuvres” means literally “outside work”. In cocktail party parlance it refers to the light food that is served before the main meal or in lieu of it. If you decide to throw a cocktail party to celebrate your engagement you won’t have to worry about serving a meal as long as you have plenty of tasty hors d’oeuvres on hand for your guests to enjoy with their drinks.

Hors d’oeuvres include canapés, cheeses, antipasto, crackers with dips, mini pizzas and quiches, dumplings and almost any other snack food you can think of. They can be placed on a table for guests to help themselves or you can arrange for a few people to walk around with trays during the engagement party. If you are organizing the food yourself, make sure you have plenty of suitable dishes and trays, or borrow them if you need to. In the days before the engagement party clear as much as you can out of your refrigerator so that the party food can be stored there until needed.

Making Your Own Hors d’Oeuvres
If you want to make your own hors d’oeuvres, you don’t have to go to a lot of expense. You will, however, need to put aside some time on the day of your engagement party to prepare any food that needs to be served fresh. Enlist the help of a few good friends, throw open your kitchen and you can turn it into an enjoyable exercise with tasty rewards resulting from it.

Unless this is something you do often, keep your preparation of your engagement party hors d’oeuvres simple. For the bases, select affordable items and ingredients that you may even already have in your pantry, such as crackers, puff pastry, party rye, pita wedgies and cream cheese pastry. Possibilities for tasty spreads include flavored butters, deviled ham, bacon cheese spread, seafood spreads and various dips. For toppings the list is virtually endless. Use chopped or sliced egg, shrimps, sliced radishes, sliced cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, parsley, cheese, bacon bits, chopped nuts, crab meat or whatever else appeals to you.

When making hors d’oeuvres, you will need to be sure you have enough to keep your engagement party guests happy, while not ending up with more leftovers than you can handle. As a guide, allow three pieces of food per person per hour. You should, however, also make some extras in case guests stay longer than you expected.

Cocktail Time
James Bond likes his martinis shaken not stirred. The legendary Auntie Mame had a different opinion. Shaking a martini, she declared, bruised the gin. It’s unlikely the guests at your engagement party will be so fussy, but if you don’t know a Cosmopolitan from a Kentucky Screwdriver you’d be wise to get someone else to act as bartender. Besides, it will give you more time to enjoy the party!

Before delegating the drink mixing duties, make sure you have enough drinks to be mixed. You will probably have a fair idea of the types of drinks your guests favor, but it’s a good idea to work out the amount per head you will need so you will know how much to buy. As a general rule, work on the principle that 10 people will consume 20 drinks at a two-hour cocktail party. You can expect to get 16 cocktails from a 750 ml bottle and 22 from a one liter bottle. If your friends like wine you could hope to get about five servings per 750 ml bottle. These are, of course, just estimates. If the engagement party goes longer than expected you will need to have more in reserve. Rather than breaking your budget by preparing the bar for every type of cocktail you and your guests can imagine, it would make better economic sense to prepare a cocktail menu featuring a selection of drinks that need only a couple of types of liquor. You will save money and the guests at your engagement party will still enjoy themselves.

Mocktails
Your engagement party should cater for non-drinkers as well as drinkers. Some of the guests will be driving and will want to drink little alcohol or none at all. Others will simply be teetotalers. Guests at some engagement parties will also include small children or people who are too young to drink. An interesting alternative for all these people will be the provision of mocktails on your drinks menu.

Mocktails are basically cocktails without the alcohol. You can make a cocktail to recipe and just leave out the alcohol, but the many specific mocktail recipes that have developed in the past few years are tastier and, because of their predominantly fruity taste and flavor, more refreshing. One of the best known mocktails is a Shirley Temple, made with ginger ale, orange juice and grenadine syrup, or with a lemon-lime soft drink substituting for the ginger ale. Another well known mocktail is a Boston Cooler comprising ginger ale and vanilla ice cream.

Served in cocktail glasses, mocktails make delicious and refreshing drinks that everyone can enjoy. Favorite mocktail ingredients you may need for your engagement party include fruit juices, tonic water, tomato juice, lime, Worcestershire sauce and bitter lemon. Looking ahead to your marriage, you may also like to plan to have a range of mocktails available for the non-drinkers, designated drivers and children at the wedding and reception.

Dinner Celebrations
For couples who favor a quiet celebration of their commitment to marriage, a dinner with friends is a good choice for an engagement party. Make sure you invite people you are comfortable with and who you know will be comfortable with each other. If possible, plan the seating so that people who don’t usually see a lot of each other will have the chance to catch up during the evening.

If you are not an over-enthusiastic cook, there’s no point trying to prepare the dinner for your own engagement party. You and your guests will enjoy it much more if you can relax at one of your favorite restaurants and hand the cooking over to the chef. A possible compromise if you want to hold your engagement party at home is to arrange for some or all of the guests to contribute by preparing and bringing the food. If there are enough guests you can divide the whole menu among them, so that each couple arrives with something, such as pre-dinner snacks, entrée, meat, salad, vegetables and dessert. All you will then have to do is provide the drinks and coffee, along with the venue. On the other hand, if you love preparing meals for your friends, get out your recipes and make your engagement party a night to remember.

Preparing For A Dinner Party
Even the best chef can have a bad day in the kitchen, so don’t try to be too ambitious if you are planning to give a dinner party to celebrate your engagement. Preparing, cooking and serving the food, combined with helping to look after your guests, will keep you extremely busy. Your engagement party will be much more enjoyable for you if you keep it simple and give yourself time to relax as well as to entertain.

As with most things, planning is the secret. This refers to everything connected with the engagement party, from buying the ingredients in good time to cooking and serving the meal. If you are still cooking when your guests arrive, make sure someone can hold the fort while you are busy with last minute issues in the kitchen. As tempting as it is to sit and chat for a few minutes, you won’t enjoy the sudden smell of burning so try to be organized before everyone arrives. You’ll make things easier on yourself if you plan cold entrée and dessert that you can have ready well ahead, leaving you free to concentrate on the main course. As a final precaution, just in case anything goes wrong with your engagement party plans, store something in your freezer that you can use in an emergency.


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