6 Ways to Master Outdoor Entertaining
With summer days in short supply, now’s the perfect time to make the most of your outdoor entertaining. With fall just around the corner, hosting outdoor events will start to look a little different. While entertaining in the summertime can be as simple as having guests over on a whim to sit poolside and bask in the sunshine, hosting outside of this season can be elevated with a few added components.
Hosting can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be! Here are a few fail-safe additions to help simply and effortlessly master your outdoor entertaining skills this fall.
As you begin, consider your atmosphere. The ambiance sets the scene for any event. With an inviting and warm environment, you can help your guests feel their best. Here are a few key ingredients sure to spruce up any event’s ambiance:
1 Music
Outdoor speakers can take your get-togethers to the next level! By incorporating music, conversation can more effortlessly flow. Including an outdoor speaker (especially one that can be heard from all areas of the venue) will liven up the group and allow your guests to feel especially festive, social and celebratory.
2 Lighting
Great lighting can really help set the right tone for your event. Ever notice how much more appealing outdoor seating at restaurants looks with a simple strand of string lights, or heat lamps? Especially with the days getting shorter in the fall, ensuring that your outdoor area has lighting of some sort in play is crucial! The addition of candles, string lights, or lamps of any sort will really warm up the space and your entertaining game.
3 Fire pits
Evening gatherings in the fall are made so much better with a fire pit. Not only do these keep your guests comfortable and happy, but they also offer the opportunity for gathering, sharing stories, and really bringing everyone to one central location together.
4 Comfort
Complement the autumnal colors outside with cozy blankets that also keep your guests warm, and make them feel at home in your outdoor space. Adding blankets is one of the easiest ways to up the cozy factor in your outdoor space! We love a good wool blanket by the fire, as these incorporate a sense of the outdoors, and help make your backyard feel like a scenic campfire.
5 Seating
One of the most important parts of outdoor entertaining is how you set up your seating. Just like with entertaining indoors, creating a cozy atmosphere is nearly impossible without ample seating. There’s nothing worse than arriving somewhere and feeling like you have no space to call your own. It is so important to make sure everyone at your gathering feels like they have a place to be present. This will ensure that all of your guests are comfortable in their personal space, in turn helping everybody feel welcome.
6 Preparation
Preparing for the event early will ensure that you feel more relaxed the day of! That relaxed feeling will translate through to your guests and make the get together more enjoyable for all! Think of your future self when gearing up to host an event. The sooner everything is in order, the more successful your future self will feel and appear, as you will have time to relax and ease into the evening!
A few things to consider as you prepare:
Gather your ingredients/groceries a few days prior. Start cooking as many dishes as you can ideally the day or night before, so food prep is not something you have to worry about on the day of!
Make a playlist or find a station you like to play music, so that you have this all ready to queue!
Clean your outdoor space by wiping down surfaces, lighting candles, laying out throw blankets, and lighting a fire before guests arrive.
To prep where food will go, and how you want your drink station to be set up, put sticky notes out designating where certain foods will be placed when it’s time to put things out. With notes, you won’t have to think about where to put what! This will make life easier on you as a host, and also your guests. The less your guests have to ask for, the more at-home they will feel, and the more enjoyable your gathering will be for them.
Have as many things as you can out, visible, and ready to go for guests, so that they can help themselves! For example, consider having a buffet style table of food so that guests can fill their plates as they please. You may also consider having a drink station ready to go so that people can self-serve. This will take making drinks off of your hands so that you, too, can enjoy yourself.
Last but not least, take a deep breath, feel proud of the incredible host you are. Get ready to have some fun!
Not only are these outdoor entertaining additions great for the fall, but they also offer the ability to take your hosting skills to the next level all year round! With these simple added elements, we guarantee your guests will be boasting about the wonderful time they had at your gathering.