How to Plan the Perfect NYE Party

New Year’s Eve is so close, and if you are hosting a party, the planning needs to start now! There is so much to consider from the drinks and the food to the decorations and entertainment. You want the night to go off without a hitch but don’t want to be too preoccupied cooking and stressing that you don’t enjoy the evening yourself. So, where’s the happy medium? Asking guests to bring their own drinks and having a buffet rather than a full-blown meal can cut down costs and reduce your time spent locked away in the kitchen. Also, re-using Christmas decorations and some intuitiveness for your decor can help create a magical space for your evening and cut down spending. But what about the dessert? If you want to show your guests a great time, you will want something show-stopping and tasty. We understand that not everyone has the time, or the baking skills, to do this so here at Cakenology, we offer a wide range of cakes for you to choose from to rock at your party!

Read on for more advice on how to throw the best New Year’s Eve party this year. Whether you don’t know how to run a buffet or how to make your own photo booth, we have you covered in this blog. Let’s kick the year off in style!

Drinks

You can’t have a New Year’s Eve party without a proper drinks menu – both alcoholic and soft. A drink can help everyone relax and ensure that your guests will enjoy the night. However, buying alcohol for all your guests can be a considerable expense. If you want to cut down on your spending, then you could just purchase the mixers and a few of the basics such as beer for games like beer pong and a glass of something fizzy for arrival and midnight. This way, your guests will still feel hosted but they can bring their own alcohol to add to the drinks table to make sure they can drink what they like.

Knowing if you or your guests want to play drinking games will also help when it comes to purchasing alcohol. Some games require different alcohol, for example prosecco or beer for ‘beer pong’, so make sure you keep this tucked away from the rest of the booze when the guests arrive, or they might drink it before the games start. Also, make sure to ask your guests how they are getting home before the party. It can even be useful to send out an email or message detailing a few local taxi numbers they can contact and book in advance. Your night can take a turn at 1 am if you have to sort out finding transport for a handful of guests who didn’t organise something before the party started.

Buffet

New Year’s Eve parties tend to start later in the evening. Since your guests will be at yours till at least around 1 am, you might suggest they arrive between 7- 8 pm to ensure the party keeps a good momentum and is still going strong when midnight comes around. Because of the later start, you could even suggest guests have a light bite for their tea a little earlier. This means you don’t need to prepare a big meal for your guests but instead stick to an easy, varied buffet. This way there will be something for everyone, meat-eater or vegetarian, and it takes half the time to prepare than a fully-cooked meal and you don’t have to worry about seating space for a sit down dinner.

Place some cold foods out before guests arrive like nuts, crisps, or cheese and crackers. As the night begins, you can then start to put hot food in the oven to cook or warm up like pizzas, meatballs, garlic bread, baked potatoes, pigs in blankets and homemade sausage rolls. These will be perfect to help sober up some people halfway through the night. By preparing your food in advance or using supermarket buffet packs, you can spend less time in the kitchen and more time enjoying the evening.

Cake

When considering what food to buy for your New Year’s Eve party, you can’t forget the dessert. For such a fabulous occasion, you want a cake that reflects the extravagance of the night and shows your guests that you are the perfect host. Make the night extra special by browsing our range of show-stopping cakes.

If you are hosting a big party this NYE, we have tiered cakes that will last all night long (and for a few days later for you to enjoy into the new year!) Our naked tiered cake decorated with fruits oozes elegance and entices your guests as they can see the delicious fillings inside, making it perfect for someone looking for something classic with a twist. If you want something more adventurous and ‘out-there’, we also offer a Croquembouche, which is a French dessert consisting of choux pastry balls held together with delicious caramel and chocolate. Different from any ‘cake’ your guests will have seen, it’s a fantastic centrepiece that is not only mesmerising to look at but delicious and indulgent to taste.

However, if you are looking for something smaller to suit the size of your party, we have a classic patisserie range with a variety of cakes to suit any tastes. We have a Cookies and Creme Mousse that combines a traditional cheese mousse with popular cocoa sandwich cookies. This is perfect for parties with younger guests as they will love the twist on their favourite biscuits. If this isn’t for you, then we also offer a Black Forest Gateau, which is a chocolate sponge cake with a layer of fresh cream and cherry filling. With a richer taste, if your party is for adults only, this cake will go down a treat and make the perfect finale to an amazing buffet. A real crowd-pleaser comes in the form of our White Chocolate Fleur which has a vanilla sponge with white chocolate cream. Old and young will like the classic flavours in this cake and the pretty decoration with the white macaroons still make this cake look fabulous.

Decorations

To bring your whole New Year’s Eve party together, you need to pick the perfect decorations. You don’t have to break the bank to create the perfect backdrop to your party; instead, you can use some of the festive decorations left up from Christmas. The twinkling lights and candles can create a more relaxed atmosphere as the night begins before the entertainment and big countdown! As the fireworks go off on TV and around your neighbourhood and all the main lights have been switched off, the small lights make it easy for guests to move about the house while creating a magical atmosphere.

Another cheap and easy way to make your party feel more luxe is to create a balloon ceiling. Inflate some gold, silver or black balloons with helium and tie them to a ribbon. Let them float to the ceiling and cut any ribbons that touch the tops of people’s heads. You still want them so when you reach up the next day to take them down, you can grab them with your hands. Inflate balloons until the whole ceiling is covered to help transform the room, adding a unique style to your evening.

You can combine decor and entertainment by making your own photo booth area for guests to have some fun. Photo booths are very popular for any occasion nowadays, but hiring a proper booth can be very expensive. Instead, you can make your own by hanging up a coloured or plain sheet for a backdrop and providing a basket of props like hats, wigs and feather boas. These can be easy to find in the party section of popular supermarkets or fancy dress shops and will keep your guests laughing and having fun long into the evening – it also gives them a nice token to remember the evening by.

New Year’s Eve is the biggest party of the year, so you want to make sure your guests are having a blast. You can take the stress out of the food by preparing in advance and ordering your cake so that you know you won’t mess up baking or struggle to find one with the WOW-factor. With professional decoration as well, Cakenology will make sure your cake not only tastes terrific but looks it too. For more information on our services and the cakes we offer, contact us today.