Dinner with friends and a world traveler
By Neg Nassir, Travel Writer
Last night, I had a wonderful dinner party with 7 of my friends, which I arranged with the help of a new application called DinnerParty. I used DinnerParty to invite one of my friends as a guest speaker for the night — he had just arrived back from 12 months of travelling around the world and we were all eager to hear his stories.
The app made it super easy to set up a profile for my featured guest and add his details to the invitation page, which I then shared with my other guests via text message, Facebook and email. I think sending a more formal invitation and presenting a featured guest encouraged my other guests to take the event more seriously and feel more excited about attending, so much so that we ended up with full attendance … with my friends, this almost never happens!
I think sending a more formal invitation and presenting a featured guest encouraged my other guests to take the event more seriously and feel more excited about attending.
I chose a Turkish restaurant in our neighborhood where we had hosted many events in the past and knew that the quality of the food and service would be impeccable. I booked a table in advance, ensuring that it was in a more private corner of the restaurant and away from the loud music, so that we wouldn’t be disturbing the other guests and to make it easier for everyone to hear our featured guest talk about his adventures.
Another great feature of the DinnerParty app was that it let guests know in advance roughly how much they were expected to pay for the dinner and drinks. The restaurant we chose only accepted cash, which meant everyone had brought enough cash with themselves for the night, making the payment process go smoother and faster.
As the guests were some of my close friends, everyone already knew each other. Our featured guest talked us through his travels and experiences from seeing Machu Picchu in Peru, spending NYE in Uruguay and hiking in Patagonia to playing video games in the many arcades of Japan, having amazing street food in Vietnam and watching the sunsets in Tehran!
After dinner, we continued chatting for hours. I got to talk in person to all the guests, who were very impressed by the featured guest as well as the food and service. I believe everyone had a great evening and I’m really happy with how this dinner party turned out… looking forward to using the DinnerParty app to help me plan my future events!
