Notes on hosting well at a small scale — planning, tables, timing, seasons, and the house itself. 14 pieces so far.
Mid-Missouri has more options than it appears to, and they cluster into about five types. Knowing which type you are looking at makes the choice considerably easier.
ReadHosting is a skill, not a personality trait. Almost all of it is decisions made in advance so that you have none left to make on the day.
ReadEverything below assumes a wedding of forty people or fewer in Mid-Missouri. Almost every piece of wedding advice online is written for a hundred and fifty, and most of it is wrong at this scale.
ReadThe rehearsal dinner is the only part of a wedding weekend where both families are in one room with nothing scheduled. Treat it as the point rather than the warm-up.
ReadA micro wedding is not a small version of a big wedding. It is a different event with a different shape, and the couples who enjoy theirs most are the ones who plan it that way.
ReadA baby shower has a particular shape: a lot of people who all want to talk to one person, in a room that needs to make that easy.
ReadShowers are the gathering people most often host at home and most often regret hosting at home. Here is how to plan one somewhere else without losing the warmth that made you want to host it yourself.
ReadMost rooms rented for workshops were designed for eating in. The differences matter more than people expect.
ReadEverything is available year-round if you are willing to fly it in. Almost nothing is a good idea year-round.
ReadMost people plan one of these while grieving and with no experience. These are the decisions, laid out plainly, so you have fewer of them to make.
ReadAlmost nobody books too many hours. A great many people book too few, and spend the first hour of their own party moving furniture.
ReadMost venue disappointments trace back to a question nobody thought to ask. These are the nine that matter most for a gathering under fifty people.
ReadBefore it was a place people gather, it was a place somebody lived. That turns out to matter.
ReadThere is a particular kind of tiredness that belongs to hosting at home, and it has almost nothing to do with the cooking.
ReadSomething you would like us to write about? Ask us.
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