The Royal Way

Valet parking. Bubbly at the door. Bite-size appetizers.

Provide these for guests and your parties will be fit for royalty, says Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York.

Speaking privately before her recent public appearance at Macy’s, South Coast Plaza, Fergie, 39, confided that she has strong feelings about how to entertain at home. She has attended too many parties where hostesses have failed to attend to the basic comforts of their guests.

“The whole idea of entertaining is to care about your guests--make them comfortable,” said Fergie, who came to Costa Mesa in her new role as U.S. spokeswoman for Wedgwood, a British maker of fine china.

Though she spends most of her time in England with her daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, the former wife of Prince Andrew travels frequently.

Fergie’s party landscape is probably grander than most. But there are amenities that can be applied to any dinner celebration, she says.

Begin by showing concern for guests the moment they arrive at your door: “Have someone help park their cars, if you can. There’s nothing more annoying than to have to walk forever to someone’s home,” she said.

And when guests enter your house, “make sure someone’s standing there with wine or cocktails--straightaway on a tray--so people can immediately have a drink,” she suggested.

Which brought Fergie to her pet dinner-party complaint: oversized appetizers.

“It’s nice to have something to eat--but, please--none of those ghastly canapes that are so big you end up spitting on someone,” she said, laughing. “Better to not have so many napkins--Americans seem to have a lot of napkins around--and serve something you can just pop into your mouth.”

When it’s time for dinner, don’t make guests “wait forever for the wine and food to come,” she advised. “It’s nice to have something on a plate--a duck salad, perhaps--when they sit down. Again, it’s a matter of making people feel at ease, showing respect. They’re ravenous--they want to get on!--and then they will start talking.”

Her No. 1 rule for party conversation: “Ask others about themselves--and keep on asking.”

More tips for entertaining:

* Loosen up your formal dinner settings by combining china patterns. “Mix and match your plates--have fun,” Fergie said. No surprise, she suggests a combination of Wedgwood patterns--Romantic England for women guests, for example, and Crown Sapphire for men.

* Use your imagination when it comes to centerpieces. “Everyone always puts flowers at the center of their table. Why?” she asks.

She likes to be playful with her party tables, taking fresh ivy from the garden, for example, and trailing it along the table or twirling it around candlesticks.

* Make home accessories part of your dinner presentation. “If I was serving a meal on Romantic England, which is blue and white, I would go to my china cupboard for some of my blue glass and use it as an accent,” she said.

For Children’s Parties, ‘Make Food Fun’

As the mother of two young girls, Fergie also loves to entertain children.

“The secret to entertaining kids is to make food fun,” she said. “They hate fish, right? So I wrap it in newspaper and have fries spilling out the top.

“Broccoli must stand on the plate like a tree--that makes it amusing,” she said. “And sometimes I’ll take a little quail egg, put it on a bed of crisps and make a nest for them.”

For a girls’ tea party, Fergie would feature a strawberry pattern on her table, serving up strawberries, whipped cream and chocolate sauce to her small guests.

To delight children on Halloween, she might prepare beef patties shaped like jack o’ lanterns and serve orange ice cream in bowls made of toffee. “They’d get to break the bowls--it’s a joke,” she said.

“In England, we celebrate Halloween big-time. Only we don’t trick or treat; we build ghost tunnels, turn the lights off and play murder-in-the-dark.”

In the end, “entertaining is all about life--what you believe in,” she said. “I believe we need to respect our guests and have as much fun as we can.”