Party Politics : Guests Want to Be Dazzled, but A-Party Hosts Are Finding It Increasingly Difficult to Be Different

What are the necessary ingredients for a successful A-party these days? Think you can let your guests park their cars themselves? Forget it: Hire a valet.

Believe you can get away with putting on some CDs as background music? No way: Live lambada dancers, rappers or a professional DJ with an extensive sound system is the way to go.

Keep the doors to the bedrooms closed and hope your guests won’t pilfer your jewelry? Why take the risk: Hire plain-clothes security.

The party circuit has become an extremely detailed undertaking these days. With more people entertaining and being entertained at personal, business, political and charitable events, keeping up with the partying Joneses has become a formidable task. Guests expect to be wined, dined--and dazzled.

From Pasadena to Malibu, for any upper crust host with money to burn who considers entertaining a serious business, even a sit-down dinner free of special touches--theme food, a live piano player, color-coordinated linens--is a thing of the past.

Hosts and hostesses are constantly struggling with new tricks to make their events stand-outs. A floral centerpiece is fine; a hanging centerpiece with pin-dot lights is better.

“I think if I went around trying to out-do somebody, I’d never make it,” says Ronnie Kassan, who, with her attorney husband, Michael, entertains about once a month. “There’s always somebody having something better or nicer or grander. I just try to do something different that might be something new for them, something intriguing.”

Usually Kassan works with a professional party planner, who helps with the catering, entertainment and valet parking, decorations, centerpieces and lighting. While she doesn’t go in for heavily themed (what she calls “gimmicky”) parties, she has thrown solve-the-murder mystery dinner parties, hired DJs as entertainment, and ordered custom centerpieces and color-coordinated table linens.

When Joan Borinstein, a commercial real estate developer, decided to throw her mother a birthday party last year, she themed it to her mother’s name, Pearl. With her caterer and designer, Borinstein planned a seafood dinner, hired a singing mermaid, hung brightly colored wood fish from the ceiling, and had a centerpiece that included crushed glass and glitter, coral, and shells with pearls inside. “It looked like we were in the middle of a tropical fish tank,” she recalls.

“For me, a party is a total art form, and it’s kind of a fantasy evening,” says Borinstein, who can take up to six months to plan an event or pull together something “spontaneous” in a few days. “Guests can come here and lose themselves. They’re events to remember, not just going out to dinner. And for me, it’s a gift to my friends.”

So what exactly does it take to throw a party with style? Start with the invitations, and forget the ones that come 25 to a package at the card shop. Custom-designed invitations on special paper, sometimes hand-delivered, are de rigueur .

Then comes the party itself. The savvy hostess no longer serves veal because it is politically incorrect, according to Hallee Gould, owner of Somerset Catering in Los Angeles. Cholesterol-watching is in, so grilled fish, seafood and grilled vegetables, minus the heavy sauces, are being served. Also in demand are ethnic cuisines, the result of the Angeleno’s exposure to the city’s burgeoning Indian, African, Vietnamese, Thai and Korean restaurants.

Out, says Gould, are “those whipped cream desserts, or those big slices of cake. Now it’s a more sophisticated splurge, with fancy but lighter desserts.”

Fresh fruit and light genoise cakes decorated with chocolate and presented like works of art are becoming the favored way to end a meal.

When it comes to decor, custom is the only way to go. Specialty lighting is a key element, says Joann Roth of Someone’s In the Kitchen, a Tarzana-based catering and party planning company. Putting up spotlights, color-washes and other effects can run $1,500.

“It enhances the look of a party,” she says. “If you’re doing an event in an airplane hangar or on a tented tennis court, you can splash the walls with color. It’s not terribly inexpensive, but it’s very effective.”

Other must-haves are made-to-order table linen that matches the decor of the house, and fine crystal and china, says Debra K. Stevenson of Los Angeles Party Designs. Instead of using whatever the rental company has on hand (most need to rent table settings for large parties), hosts are asking for lace and lame, which can cost up to $100 per table.

“There is generally an emphasis on good taste, not necessarily opulence,” says Stevenson. “For a while, it was ‘Who can stun the guests more?’ But now it’s a big no-no to have a party that’s so gimmicky that you have to explain it or apologize for it.”

Instead, “People are going for subtle touches, which still can be expensive. I did a garden event in late fall, and there weren’t a lot of flowers blooming. So we studded the landscape with flowers. It looked natural, and it cost over $5,000 to make it look like a garden in bloom. But no one knew that that much money went into it. There’s not much of an emphasis on having the price tag hanging off a bush.”

The considerate host, she said, realizes not all guests are drinking alcohol these days. “More people are having an array of non-alcoholic drinks available,” she said, “and even setting up water bars. Some hosts are providing stand-by limos to take people home if they’ve had too much to drink, and some companies automatically book five to 10 rooms in the hotel where they’re having their event if their employees aren’t able to drive home.”

While your guests are having a grand time in your house, who’s watching your valuables? Security isn’t just for celebrity-studded big bashes anymore.

“Generally, I’ll bring up the idea of security with a client because it’s not always present in their mind,” says Roth of Someone’s In the Kitchen. “The (security personnel) are not obvious at all. It’s understated, not like having a uniformed person with a gun. But if someone is having a party in their house and a guest brings a friend the hostess doesn’t know, suddenly you have strangers wandering through their house. Also, if guests are leaving the house and walking to their cars, (you want to make sure) that they’re safe.”

But more often than not, guests don’t have to walk to their cars, due to the current frenzy for valet parking.

“When I first started doing this, I had to stop people and tell them I wanted to park their car for them, and they would laugh,” says veteran valet Chuck Pick of Chuck’s Parking in Sherman Oaks. Now, “People drive to the front of the house automatically expecting to see valet parkers.”

While winding, narrow streets and restricted parking areas sometimes make valets a necessity, others hire them solely for the cachet. In the last few years, valet parking at parties has become as expected as the cocktail hour.

“There’s a group of society people who like to have parties, they cater them, it’s service all the way through,” says Pick, who goes by the general rule of one attendant for every 25 guests.

“I’ll tell the clients they don’t need valet parking, but they say, ‘It looks good.’ It should be a luxury. When people drive up, sometimes they’ll say, ‘Look, they even have valet parking.’ Already they know it’s going to be a better event than they thought.”

When it comes to providing entertainment for guests, “There is a very big need to be trendy,” according to Andrea Michaels of Extraordinary Events in Sherman Oaks, an event-planning company with an emphasis on booking live acts. “Right now everybody is lambada-ing. And we can get rap groups to customize lyrics, like the way they do roasts.

“Live entertainment is really critical,” says Michaels, who gets 400 calls a week from eager performers. “People are more conscious of quality, and they know what’s good, and it’s very hard to pass off some back-yard band. A lot of people do want name entertainment; one client wanted Michael Feinstein.”

A “name” can run $20,000 and up, depending on the performer’s equipment, air fare and accommodations for them and whatever entourage they bring along.

“You don’t have to have the same thing all night,” she adds. “You can have a string quartet during dinner and something else afterward. You’re not putting your cards on the table all at once, but creating happy little surprises.”

Professional DJs are in as much demand as live musicians; Dion of Dion’s Disco Service in Los Angeles has parties booked through 1993. His services don’t come cheap: There’s a minimum charge of $2,000 to $2,500 for four hours. Dion brings his own $40,000 sound system, 4,000 records and a crew who keeps the party rolling by asking guests for requests and teaching them dance steps.

“Some people prefer having a DJ because you get the actual artist, instead of someone who’s trying to sing, and maybe they’re off-key. I do a lot of bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs, and you can mix music that the kids and the parents like to dance to.”

Why do people go to all this trouble and expense for a few hours of fun?

“I think it’s a matter of not enhancing their image, but stating what their image is,” says Michaels of Extraordinary Events. “It’s a reinforcement. They’re saying, ‘I’m a quality person who entertains beautifully, and everything you experience is going to show how much taste I have.’ It’s not a competitive thing, but by using the same suppliers and services that their friends use, they’re showing that they’re just as caring in providing a party that’s just beautiful.”

PRICING THE PARTY

Here’s what it costs to throw an A-party (all prices are approximate, depending on size and length of the party).

* Custom invitations: $10 to $50 per invitation.

* Custom table linens: $15 to $100 per table.

* Lighting package: $1,500 (can include color washes, spotlights, plus technicians and labor).

* Catered three-course dinner: (For 50 people) $30 to $35 a person. Does not include service.

* Entertainment: “Name” entertainer, $20,000; professional disk jockey, $2,000 to $2,500; Brazilian dance band and dancers, $1,300 to $5,000.

* Valet parking: $76 for each attendant for four hours of service.