When people have a dining room or even a dedicated dining area, they like to dress it up for certain occasions. The dining table is sometimes seen as a more formal space to eat, with many people preferring the more casual setting of a kitchen island or breakfast bar. The dining room however still very much maintains its presence in Irish homes and presents the opportunity to dress it up to celebrate the coming together of loved ones, be that for a regular Sunday lunch, a Christmas dinner or the likes of a birthday gathering.

Dinner Party Styling Ideas

Hosting a dinner party for family and/or friends is a wonderful thing to do but it also means preparing the dining area and while a formal effort doesn’t necessarily have to be made, it’s possible to create a beautiful scene in the dining area for your guests. One of the first things to do is to choose a playlist to have some pleasant and suitable background music for your guests; the likes of Spotify will have many to choose from just by searching “dinner party” in the playlist section. If you’re stuck for space and you don’t think your dining area is sufficiently big enough to comfortably house all your guests, you could consider temporarily moving some furniture around such as your couch, if for example your extended table fits better there. Next up for consideration is the lighting. Traditional lighting can be harsh and non-atmospheric so opting for things like night lights dotted around and also candelabras filled with candles can make the scene so much better. If your budget rises to getting fresh flowers, visit your florist who will advise you on what to get or get flowers based on what’s in season from the likes of your local supermarket. In order for guests to be able to still see each other, you should use small or lower set vases; you can cut your flowers down to size or keep the main bunch on a sideboard should you have one. 

Seasonal Party Styling Ideas

-      Christmas

Everyone loves a dressed table at Christmas time and while there are so many other things to do to get prepared for Christmas, creating a festive dining room can be done quite easily and with budgets of all sizes. To create a beautiful centre piece, you’ll need the following:

• A piece of runner material of a neutral colour such as beige; table runners would be generally inexpensive and available in most department stores.
• Use Christmas tree baubles that are leftover from decorating your tree and place them at varying stages along the table runner. Or buy more but keep them the same colour as those that are on your tree.
• Use some greenery such as off-cuts from your Christmas tree (if it’s a real one) or something such as Eucalyptus branches and place them on top of the table runner.

A candle holder or two placed along the table with candles to match the overriding colour theme will also make a fantastic impact.

Useful Guide on Creating an Easy Christmas Dining Room Atmosphere

-      Easter

Easter falls in springtime so it lends itself to wonderful colour options especially when dressing up your dining room. In recent years, we’ve started to really celebrate Easter here almost as much as Christmas and you see wonderful situations of families and friends coming together for lunches and dinners. Lamb is a traditional meal served on Easter Sunday so it’s nice to dress the table to match this wonderful meal. The Easter bunny is a major feature of the celebration and around this time of year you can get them widely in chocolate formats in supermarkets. Create a centre display (which can be eaten after as part of dessert!) using chocolate bunnies in various sizes; place them on a tray with a vase of flowers in the middle and intersperse with lots of chocolate eggs, again in a variety of sizes. Daffodils and tulips are the flowers of the season and would add wonderful colour. Use jam jars to loosely display various bunches of these beautiful flowers around the room to create a pretty but less formal display.

-      Birthdays

Children’s birthday parties in your home generally require a bit of pre-planning and a well dressed table to mark the occasion is usually part of the scenario. There are many ways to achieve this and you don’t have to be gifted in craft making either! Children generally love sweets so one idea is to create a “sweet station” on the dining table. All you need are different sized containers, lots of colourful sweets (widely available) and some decoration and your imagination. Add in a lightbox to create some focus on the birthday boy or girl and you have a wonderful candy corner! 

Whatever the occasion, making an effort to style your dining room set is an option to make your guests feel welcome (add some easy-to-make cardboard name tags too) and to show off your style tastes. An extendable dining table is a really clever option when furniture buying because it allows you to cater for those larger crowds! Happy entertaining!