Be Our Guest

I know some of you are curious what my day is like. The Ps entertained 12 guests for dinner recently. Like any household, there is plenty of preparation that goes into a dinner event. This usually starts well before the day of the party. Here is what entertainment day is like.

The event was scheduled to begin around 7:00 with dinner at 7:30. My day started at Noon.
Two round tables, a 7 top and an 8 top were used. The 7 was a bit crowded. For service flow it is customary to keep a minimum of 24 inches from center of plate to center of plate. (Yes, 24 inch on center!). However, the 7 top worked better than a 6 at one table and 9 seated at the other for other reasons.

One each of two different dinner settings were templated by Mrs. P the night before. This gave me the visual of what all the settings would look like. The two settings were alternated between seats at both tables.

Wine was moved from the cold cellar to the refrigerator for proper chilling first thing. There was a pre-dinner white plus a white and red served with dinner. A sauterne was served with dessert.
Next came preparation for setting the table.

White & red wine glasses plus water stemware was pulled, washed and staged for setting.
Silverware was pulled, washed and staged for setting.

Chasers, main course plates, appetizer plates, salad bowls and bread & butter plates were pulled, washed and staged for setting.

The linens were washed, dried until just damp and then pressed on Thursday (5 hours, gads my back hurt on Friday!)

Bar glasses were pulled, washed and staged for the bar. Wine decanters were pulled, washed and staged for the bar.

Serving dishes for the appetizer, salad & main course service were pulled, washed and staged in the kitchen for service.

On to flower settings. Mrs. P decided on sunflowers as the center piece for each table and 2 other tables in the room. We cut them very short and used pebbles and water in 12 inch vases. With her help, it looked very nice.

Next came setting the table. By now, you should have the impression this in not George Webb with the silver wrapped in a paper napkin. It took 90 minutes or so to get the 2 tables dressed and set to the proper standard. It was time well spent for the hosts received compliments later that evening.

Next I stocked the bar, filled the beverage refrigerator, setup drink garnishes, ice bucket, etc.
I made a quick pass through the entertainment spaces to straighten up, took out the garbage. I then took a short break and waited the next 10 minutes for the caterers and 2 extra staff to arrive at 6.

Did I mention the flood in the furnace room and the HVAC emergency service call in the middle of the afternoon? I wet-vac'd two and a half gallons of water off the floor and called to the vampires of emergency service. 1 second to blow some algae out of the dehumidifier line. I won't even tell you how much they charged. They should be ashamed! Total time was one precious hour. All the best laid plans, etc.; good thing I had time in the schedule for an extra hour for things like the bar and the flowers (which I forgot about) and one more hour for contingencies.

Starkey does have an excellent form. We used it during the weeks leading up to our formal dinners. I pulled it out the morning of the event. Next time, I will use the bloody form well before the day of the event to make sure these things are accounted for. That should save me over an hour on entertainment day.

Dinner went very well. We had some hiccups and could have used one more person, but it was a great effort by the team considering it was all our first time doing this together.