Invitations - Devising Your Guest List - Rule 4

Rule 4: Consider using new blood to energize old groups.

Sounds contradictory with some of the advice in previous posts, but isn’t really. If the same group of people parties over and over together over a period of time, they are going to get stuck in a rut, and no matter how good the parties are – the social dynamics will stagnate.

The way around this is to mix things up by every so often inviting a few new faces to things – not an entirely different group, as the two groups might just take up separate positions in the house and look at each other funny, but some well-chosen, reasonably social individuals whom you already know from elsewhere and think will mix well with your existing group of friends. Not only are the new people likely to enjoy your event, there is a good chance they will shake up the ‘old guard’ at your parties and help energize things.

One good way to expand a guest list is to encourage old friends to extend the invitation to friends of theirs not known to rest of group – that way, you know the new faces at the party will at least know and get along well with someone there, and if they mix well with the friends that invited them, odds could be better that they’ll also get along with the friends of their friends. As with all such moves, a little luck is involved, but this tactic does shift the odds in favor of a successful introduction.

There are some risks with experimenting with your guest list – no matter how good your judgement, we all occasionally make mistakes about people – but in the long haul, if you host many events for more or less the same group of people, the effect of shaking up your guest list now and again can be the difference between another good but humdrum party, and a party that really cooks.

Invitations - Devising Your Guest List - Rule 3

Rule 3: Use some discretion when mixing groups of friends who don’t know each other well.

Same idea as the mixed office group/friends group scenario mentioned in Rule 1, but without the concern about setting you back professionally -- though, there are a few different wrinkles.

Mixing groups of friends can sometimes work out very well; you just have to be able to gauge the personalities involved and the ‘culture’ of the groups being mixed … and make that judgement call. Depending on personalities and group social dynamics, two very different groups can not only do well together, but may even complement each other – for instance, combining a group of crazy partiers and a more sedate group may result in a party that is neither too laid back, nor so nuts that it trashes your place and you’re cleaning for weeks – and if most everyone enjoys the blend, you have a winner.

Common interests help, of course, as it gives everyone, whether they know each other or not, something to talk about. For instance, inviting a couple of different friend groups you know that share an interest in fine wine, for an evening of dinner and wine-tasting, is likely to be a pleasant and interesting evening for concerned.

But of course, mixing different groups of people can misfire horribly as well – consider the bachelor party where the groom-to-be’s list includes both his old wild college friends and a newer group of super-religious people from his new church. This is a heated team argument, and a stressful evening for the host, just waiting to happen. In this instance the host is pretty much screwed, as the guest list was made by the Guest of Honor himself and you have some obligation to follow their wishes. However, there may be a few ways to mitigate the mess:

Negotiate with groom to have two different parties is one option. Or, if it has to be a single event, perhaps arrange the event in two parts – a more mellow, tasteful early-evening party at your own home, followed by a rowdy night out on the town, complete with a party van and designated driver. If you make the format clear in the invitation, the individuals who have objections to the boozy venue-hopping, but still want to pay their respects to the groom, will probably simply plan to bow out on the second half of the party. If so – problem solved.

If, on the other hand,  you end up with a couple militants who decide to argue with everyone heading  for the party van, instead of graciously bowing out for the rowdy portion of the evening -- if this situation occurs, quickly take the troublemakers aside before the argument escalates too much, and politely but firmly encourage them to depart, if they are truly that uncomfortable.

No matter how it turns out, if you have taken your best shot at showing the guest of honor a good time, the above steps, you at least can rest after the even in the knowledge that you did could to head the trouble off, and aren’t personally responsible when others choose to act poorly. Perversely, over the years we have typically had way more offensive, difficult, and outright unacceptable behavior at parties from those professing to be straight-laced and religious than we have had from the party-hearty crowd -- the latter generally have more social skills, are less pent-up (and therefore less likely to cross the line when they cut loose), and more tolerant of people different from themselves. Who'd have thunk it?

Invitations - Devising Your Guest List ... Rule 2

OK, another hiatus there - something about being taken over by the Halloween season. Now that I have 2 big buffet parties behind me -- my son's Trick-or-Treat party with his friends (and us with their parents) .... and my wife's Dia de los Muertos-themed birthday party -- time for another blog. we were discussing composing guest lists, and here's the next biggie --

Rule 2: When possible, don’t invite people who dislike each other to the same event

Sometimes you may not be able to get around it, but if you have some choice in the matter, inviting people who actively dislike each other is almost always a bad idea. This is very much a judgement call – there are people who don’t really care for each other’s company, and at a large-enough event can easily avoid each other, or get by with polite conversational nothings if they find themselves in the same space – this is probably OK (though at the other end of the spectrum, in an intimate dinner party mixing these two could be quite uncomfortable).

However, if they really do despise each other, putting them together at even a large gathering is often a recipe for trouble, especially if one of more of the individuals in question have a problem behaving like an adult when under pressure. It is a disservice to everyone present – to you as the host, because you’ll be busy enough without having to manage others’ personal problems; to the other guests, who came anticipating getting to relax and have a good time, and will instead experience tension whenever the combatants are in the room, and even to the combatants themselves. They may rightly wonder why you chose to make them so uncomfortable, and confront you directly or leave in a flurry, making for a potentially embarrassing scene.

Broken marriages or long-term relationships are a case-by-case basis. If two of your friends who were married or as good as, then broke up, are on your usual list of invitees, this is a special situation. You cannot invite one and not the other (unless you really want to anger the one not invited), and oftentimes just inviting both can turn out badly, for obvious reasons. On the other hand, if the break-up was friendly and/or the separated couple can both be relied on to behave like adults, there may be no issue inviting both. When in doubt, call them both individually, comment that you are a friend to them both and would like to invite them both, but don’t want to put them in uncomfortable circumstances either. Most reasonable, honest people will appreciate your concern for their feelings – and the warning that they may encounter the other person at your party -- and may even work an arrangement out between themselves without you having to get much more involved.