How to Plan a Murder Mystery Dinner Party
Welcome guys, I have hosted a Christmas Dinner party 2 years in a row now. My third party is having a little make over, My fellow girl about town, Kaitlin and I are hosting a murder mystery dinner party! Want to know how??? KEEP READING
by Mimi
12/12/22
Step one: Your Guest List
The first thing we do every year is sort out the guest list. This is quite an easy task for us, luckily more or less we have a core group of school friends who have been invited back every year. Some have been culled over the years :/ you know what it gets like after school. But yes that is the first task. Once you have decided your guests its time to settle the date and time.
Now deciding the date and time is a rather important step. I will tell you the reason i’ve come to this conclusion….back in First year uni, the first year I hosted, the dinner party was on Christmas eve eve, this seemed like a very good idea at the time as I thought everyone would be well and truly in the festive spirit, all uni assignments would be done and they would be fully relaxing! (Not that first year uni isn’t incredibly relaxing but anyway.) I was right about all the above but something I didn’t think about was the severe hangovers that would ruin family festivities on Christmas eve and even Christmas day.
Lily who you may know from the podcast or as a fellow girl about town, was so hungover she was didn’t make it to her family annual Christmas party…an important event in the Lily household. I’m going to put some of the blame on Lily, some on the party date and a lot of the blame on me who was filling her glass WAY to much. The point i’m badly trying to make is to make sure the date suits all and no other festivities are ruined! Alternatively just drink a little more water before bed if you can stomach it @ LIL.
Moving on to the venue. Our venue of choice is my home, so secondly I persuade my parents that having a very boozy dinner party in their house with some of the loudest people I know is a really good idea. Then I persuade them to go out for the night and have all my friends stay so we can all drink and I don’t wind up being the only drunk one :)
Once that is all complete it’s time decide our theme…
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Step 2: The Theme
Theme, AS you guys have guessed from the title and obvious hints, this year is MURDER MYSTERY THEMED! I have the perfect kit to make your murder mystery party possible without any of the hassle.
I’m no beginner to a murder mystery party, I have hosted a few in my time. By a few I mean one when I was 11. The picture to your left is my 11th birthday murder mystery party… just classic. Thats me in 2012 hosting my first murder mystery party, Kaitlin our fellow girl about town is rocking the red wig and sunglasses! This is the effort we are looking for with the costumes!!!!
The kit is tried and tested! In a bid to make lockdown family life more exciting we used the very kit we will be using this year to have a family murder mystery party.
The kit we will be using is the MURDER AT THE MANOR, I will link it below if anyone wants to purchase. The kit is for 6-10 people so bear that in mind when sorting your guest list.
The kit is amazing, it sorts everything out which is good for those who fail to understand the logistics of pulling of a murder mystery. When I say everything I mean everything. It has scripts, characters, dress descriptions, a CD to narrate the evening, it even schedules in when you will have which food course, IT’S AMAZING! The murderer is picked out of a hat at the beginning so it doesn’t matter if you are not using all the characters.
Once you have this all set up/ or decided on another theme send out you’re invites. Every year we have done this via facebook which is a good way of doing it as everyone can see who is invited and guests can select easily whether they can come or not so it’s a vibe. Is facebook still cool? am? I? now? old?
If so I’m sure a group text message would suffice as a good invite. Or send one in the post if you want to go old school. Although that is is you want to blow you’re budget on something in my opinion rather unnecessary, your not inviting the queen lets be honest. rip lizzie.
Step 3: Assign Characters to your Guests
Picking the characters! This is the really fun part for the hosts. We took into consideration dress code, character blurbs and acting ability. Once we decided on this it was time to email out the characters to our guests! We were very excited about this, which says a lot about us…
Below is an example of our invite which also gives you an insight into a of the character! ! !
Step Four: Food and Drink
Deciding the menu is vital. We have a go big or go home attitude when it comes to the food, so a starter, main and pud are the mere essentials!
The starter and main need to be tasty, the pudding less so. I say this because in my experience my guests are all too drunk to appreciate the deliciousness or technicality of a well baked pud. I have made a cake two years running now, its just easier and I love cake so thats my justification (not that anyone asked.) The cake I made last year was technically awful, it’s because I tend to chuck a load of ingredients in there that are not needed and are not in the recipe. Lets just say I wouldn’t get into bake off with this entry. But my guests loved it! According to some it was the best coffee cake they have ever tasted! (I may be making that up?:))
The year before Betty Crocker and I made a lovely red velvet cake, well it was lovely before I dropped it in my hallway… not even that stopped everyone thoroughly enjoying it though (don’t worry I did tell them, in fact they all saw it)
So yes my point is proven that at that point in the evening you’re guests will eat anything if you give them enough alcohol. Or maybe thats just my friends????
Speaking of alcohol, obviously this is needed, it is Christmas after all. After year one we decided to make it a BYOB, which means Bring your own booze for anyone living under a rock. We made some severe budget cuts after 2 years at uni.
This system works though, lots of people bring bubbles, others bring wine and of course we have some spirits and spare bottles just in case ;)
I have just realised I completely forgot to give you some food suggestions!
For a starter you could do, soup, prawn cocktail (for the bougie amongst us,) or bruschetta. Mains could be a salmon wellington, chicken curry, or a roast (if you can be bothered, I’m bloody can’t).
I have linked some seasonal dinner party meal ideas and recipes below so head over there for more inspo…
Step 5: Extra Games/ Entertainment
Catalysed by several glasses of bubbles and lots of wine we all become the entertainment at one point in the evening but games make it all a lot more interesting. One of my all time fave games we have played in the past has to be homemade charades- I am completely making up this name please do not quote me :).
How this works, and forgive me for my explanation, is we all write someone or something on a small bit of paper and fold it and pop it into a vessel that is big enough for a hand to get in and pick one. The thing has to be something that you all know. So for example as we are a group of school friends we choice iconic moments and people from our school.
The first round we each have to pick one out one by one and explain it until someone gets it. You can split into teams if you want to get competitive!
After you have picked out all the pieces of paper you are ready for the second round. The second round you have to act it out. You are becoming more and more familiar with the pieces of paper as the rounds go on. So again once you have acted out all the pieces of paper, Round three awaits. In this round allows you to only use one word to describe the event or person on the paper which your teammates have to guess. Add more rounds if you are feeling inventive! It’s lots of fun and got us all laughing.
The entertainment this year will hopefully be top notch because of our theme! But yes play all the party games you can think of as it will get everyone in the mood!
A cheese board could come out at this point if you are feeling festive and fancy. Secret Santa is also another idea to add to the festivities.
Give you’re guests an incentive to embody their characters while acting in the Murder Mystery, add prizes for best dressed and best acting. Anyone with a drama GCSE it’s their time to shine! If you’re shy help yourself to a shot, I’m sure that will bring out you’re inner Julia Roberts.
There it is guys!!
I hope that has helped! As you can see in the pic above I am living my best hosting life! If you want to know more then please email me @jfraserandrews1@gmail.com to ask any questions, I am all ears! I will obviously update you all about how the dinner party went, we will have costume pics, the murderer will be revealed as well as our prizes for best dressed and best acting.
Girls About Town
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