5 Simple Ideas for a Stress Free Dinner Party. Perfect for a girls night in! LivingLocurto.com

 Sponsored by Dr. Oetker

I love getting together with friends, especially having a “Girls Night In” with my girlfriends! Today, I’m happy to share some simple tips for hosting a stress free dinner party along with a fabulous giveaway to help you plan a fun night in with your friends!

When it comes to a party or simple dinner with friends, I’m all about making it easy! I used to go crazy with decorations and fancy recipes, but that just became too stressful and not fun at all. These days, I’m much less stressed and do things that are easy and fun for me as well as my guests.

I hope you enjoy these quick tips and the awesome giveaway!

 5 Simple Ideas for a Stress Free Dinner Party. LivingLocurto.com

1. Enjoy dinner yourself by serving something simple.

You don’t have to cook a five course meal to host a fabulous dinner party! I love to bake simple dishes to make dinner parties low stress.

As you know, I’ve been working with and love serving their scrumptious pizza anytime I have friends come over. Not only is this pizza so easy to make, but it tastes like homemade! My latest favorite is their Mozzarella pizza with tomatoes, Edam cheese and a herbs that perfectly compliment the generous helping of cheese on top. Doesn’t this look delicious and oh so fancy? Nobody will know you didn’t make it from scratch:-)

Adding a fresh salad to something store-bought makes entertaining so much easier!

Slicing some goat cheese and placing it on toasted bread or crackers always makes a good presentation as well.

5 Simple Tips for a Stress Free Dinner Party. LivingLocurto.com

Check out the Ristorante Store Locator to find this brand of frozen pizza near you. 

2. Make a Beautiful Presentation with Items You Already Own

For easy wow factor, use a tablecloth and get out those fancy dishes, serving trays, napkins and glasses that you keep stored away. Simple white dishes and just one or two accent colors make a great tablescape.

Flowers and centerpieces should be short enough to talk over. I like getting inexpensive grocery store flowers or picking flowers from my garden and dividing them up into several small vases. Sometimes I use fancy glasses for my vases.

3. Have a Drink and Appetizer Station

Designate a table or counter space just for drinks and appetizers so people can help themselves. This gives you plenty of time to chat with friends and frees you to go back and forth to the kitchen to finish up things for dinner if needed. I like to put appetizers in areas I would like people to sit. Having food in that space insures they will congregate around that area of your home.

Break open the wine or sparkling cider. For some reason, drinking from fancy glasses is always so much more fun! Make sure to have extra wine, glasses and bottle openers out and ready to go when needed.

5 Simple Tips for a Stress Free Dinner Party. LivingLocurto.com

4. Have a Conversation Piece

A conversation piece can be a fancy dessert, beautiful centerpiece, fun napkins or silly wine glasses with goofy quotes on them. I often think about the conversation piece just as much as the food! My girlfriends and I love the Lolita wine glasses.

For my latest girl’s night in, I made spiked popsicles with my new ring popsicle molds! Now that is a conversation piece right? Ha!

Adult Frozen Ring Pop  - 5 Simple Tips for a Stress Free Dinner Party. LivingLocurto.com

To make these popsicles, I added a little bit of Pomegranate Vodka to some Pom Hula Juice. Yum!

5. End with a Delicious Dessert 

You want to give your guests a lasting impression with a fabulous dessert!

I’ve got a ton of great dessert recipes if you need a new idea for your next party. If you don’t want to cook, just pop over to your local bakery and get some yummy cupcakes. You can’t go wrong with cake!

Funny Dessert Napkin - 5 Simple Tips for a Stress Free Dinner Party. LivingLocurto.com

Girls Night In Giveaway!

Now, thanks to , you get a chance to win some great prizes to help you plan a fabulous Girls Night In Dinner Party! I’m giving away some accessories to take your Girls Night In to the next level and make the party planning process stress-free!

Here are the fun prizes you could win…

Follow the directions on the widget to enter to win. Good Luck!

Another BIG Giveaway…

While you’re planning your summer parties, don’t forget to enter Ristorante’s Savor Your Summer Sweepstakes on Facebook with prizes valued at $1,500!

Ristorante Pizza - Savor Your Summer Perfect Night In Giveaway

Enter for your chance to win a partial home makeover and to bring together just the right combination of food and people who are important to create a Perfect Night In.

Follow Dr. Oetker USA on Facebook to get more details.

 

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Dr. Oetker USA LLC. I received compensation for this post; however, all opinions stated are my own.

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61 Comments

  1. talking. Food and drinks are nice, but as long as we can sit down and catch up, that's perfect!

  2. Stephanie says:

    My favorite girls night activity is to watch a movie we’ve all been waiting to see and eat food!

  3. Laura Stilwell says:

    Dinner and drinks.

  4. Having a kids free dinner and talking!

  5. Play Mexican train!

  6. Lisa Jones says:

    Making Paella together with your friends makes a wonderful party!

  7. Just sitting around chatting about our lives, maybe while making a craft or working on a project.

  8. Lunch and lots of laughs!!!

  9. Kara Sharp says:

    Wine and delicious appetizers, with some great conversation!!

  10. Sue Kennedy says:

    I love playing bunco with my girlfriends

  11. Amy M. C. says:

    I like to hang out at a great restaurant or coffee shop.

  12. Dinner out!

  13. Sarah Avila-Ward says:

    A dinner with fabulous wine enjoyed outside!

  14. Natalie Yarbrough says:

    I love playing apples to apples, blaring music in the background and watching a good movie after.

  15. Dessert, drinks and games are my favorite girls night activity

  16. I like going to a nice restaurant.

  17. Ladies Night In – “Happiness as is” friends and I started a compliment box where we write down things about each other and read them out loud by the end of the evening. Its a great conversation starter

  18. Stephanie j says:

    Wine and crafts!

  19. Lucie Skinner says:

    Drinking, eating & having fun

  20. girls night inโ€ฆ we cook dinner, drink wine and gossip

  21. Jodi Ross Hill says:

    Drinking wine and making crafts is my favorite girls night out activity!

  22. Patty Doering-Montpetit says:

    I love playing most games and visiting

  23. Dinner & dessert

  24. My favorite girls night activity is watching movies and doing hair/nails!

  25. I love going to a musical or a play since my husband doesn’t really enjoy those.

  26. Tamrah T. says:

    We girls will just keep it simple with a movie and dessert.

  27. Contessa Aiello says:

    Nothing better than getting together with old friends and giggling until you pee! Been there, done that and laughed even more.

  28. chatting with girl friends.

  29. My girls night would consist of dinner, wine, & conversation.

  30. My least favorite girls night activity has to be watching movies, cause i feel like im not getting that time in with them.

  31. I love going out to the movies.

  32. Abigail Sweeney Bernier says:

    Does drinking wine count as an activity?!

  33. Kimber Chambless says:

    Just Drinking coffee or wine and doing a lot of talking and listening ๐Ÿ™‚

  34. Kara Thomas says:

    Playing 42, or dictionary, and just talking with my friends!

  35. foodandcrafts says:

    Just chatting over wine and snacks.

  36. Dinner outside and conversation….planning one for next week. =)
    Thanks

  37. Jessica Noffsinger says:

    Catching up over a cold beverage!

  38. Girls night out starts Margaritas at El Paragua followed by a fabulous dinner and later dancing. But most of all great conversation and lots of laughs!

  39. Bunco! Great drinks, yummy food, fun friends, what more can a girl ask for?

  40. Bridget T. says:

    We like to play games, Nerts, Mexican Train, or Trivial Pursuit.

  41. watching a movie, while doing manicures, and drinking some great mixed drinks

  42. Always fun with our funny friends!

  43. Cocktails or wine, bad tv and catching up on all the things we’ve missed out on being that lives and work take over and we only get to do this once a month!

  44. Helen Vigil says:

    Wine and appies party, for sure!

  45. Yummy snacks, music, time to talk

  46. Melissa Olson says:

    great company and awesome food!

  47. Lunch a lots of laughs

  48. My favorite girls’ night activity is movie-watching.

  49. Katrina Turnbach says:

    Chatting with fancy drinks

  50. Judi Fields Peffley says:

    This is what my life needs! Girls' nights in!

  51. Kim Olson says:

    Catching up over a glass of wine

  52. Roxanne Russell says:

    Karaoke!!

  53. My friends and I call it “indoor camping” which involves lots of snacks, blankets, couches, pjs, bad tv, and smores in the oven. It may make the best Friday nights ever.

  54. my BFF and i always make margaritas, nachos and watch sons of anarchy or something like that

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