SOCIAL CLIMES / TIME OUT : A Woman Who <i> Really</i> Knows How to Party
Terri Mandell’s epiphany came when she received an invitation to a dinner party.
Not just any dinner party--this was a formal affair at a country club in another town on a Friday at 6 p.m.
“It required everyone to come home from work early enough to change into formal clothes,” she recalls, “then drive on the freeway at 5:30 on a Friday night.
“I said to myself, ‘I know these people really well, they’re smart people, how can they make a mistake like this? Why Friday, why not Saturday?’ That’s when it hit me. They don’t know these little basic rules.”
So Mandell, an author and lecturer, decided to set down some rules in the book “When Good People Throw Bad Parties: A Guide to Party Politics for Hosts and Guests” (First House Press, $8.95).
She covers host and guest etiquette (“It is definitely improper to bring an uninvited guest to a party of any kind unannounced”), common party problems (men and women break into separate groups), wedding wisdom (“Wedding traditions . . . are not set in cement”) and surprise-party tips (“Don’t throw a surprise party for a divorced, separated or presently quarreling couple in the hopes of reconciling them”).
Mandell’s knowledge comes from years of party-going and throwing, and encountering the good, the bad and the ugly.
She relates her tales from the front lines over coffee at Aroma Coffee & Tea Company in Studio City, a neighborhood hangout that’s within walking distance of her home.
The party she went to the night before is on her mind--a lavish 300-person affair given by a recording-equipment firm that was rambling and unfocused.
“It was just all these people thrown into a room,” Mandell says. “At some point someone should have gone up to the microphone and said, ‘On behalf of the company we welcome you, I want to give special thanks to so-and-so.’ ”
In a chapter titled “Parties From Hell: Unforgettably Embarrassing Moments,” Mandell tells of a surprise party given by a friend for his wife, in which he asked guests to “show up any time after 8 p.m.” The couple had also just moved into a new home and had no furniture, so everyone had to sit on the floor while eating the only food provided--wine, cake and fruit salad.
Then there was the outdoor party in 104-degree heat (the house was off-limits for some reason) where guests “sat around panting like dogs, drenched in sweat.”
Mandell credits her mother with teaching her the nuts-and-bolts of party hosting. “She’s aggressive, and at her parties, when men and women will separate, she’ll work really hard to put them together. She’ll just march right up to people and say, ‘C’mon, you guys, let’s fix this.’ ”
In the process, Mandell learned that the key to a successful party isn’t the food, the lighting or the table decor.
“The communication element of a party is the only thing that matters . . . making sure that people are comfortable and feel emotionally safe and can connect with other people. Because what’s the purpose of going to a party? You go to meet people.”
She gives this advice to hosts: “The best way to do introductions is to give information. ‘This is Terri, she just wrote a book.’ ‘Or, let me introduce you to Jane, she’s a single mom.’ You give information.
“And you don’t have to stick around long at all. Here’s this person, here’s his bio, and then you’re out of there. The host should always be looking around for loose people, making sure they’re OK, not asking, ‘Can I fill your drink,’ but, ‘Who would you like to meet?’
“Mixing is everything,” she says emphatically. “But it’ll be a disaster if you take all these people, invite them to your house and just leave them there.
“One thing that works is to have some kind of an activity, an ice-breaker.” One idea she suggests for New Year’s Eve is to have guests say where they want to be a year from now.
“I did that at a party the other night. It was charming--older people said they wanted to be alive a year from now, someone said she wanted to be pregnant, someone else said he wanted to have his house sold. And some people didn’t want to do it, so they left the room.
“But when the circle broke up, everyone was laughing and just totally supportive of what other people said, no one judged or made fun of them. And people found somebody to talk to they hadn’t talked to before.”
With the holidays looming, Mandell advocates breaking from the status quo of traditions, if possible, and not feeling locked into years-old patterns. A case in point: spending your own money to travel thousands of miles to be with family members that you may not even like.
She mixes up family, friends and co-workers at holiday parties, and says: “It turns out they just love each other. Everybody thinks in this culture there’s this separation between old people and young people, between ethnicities and between genders. There’s a place where you get to where that’s all irrelevant.”
