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.