My mother had a milestone birthday recently — her 60th — which my family thought deserved a special event. However, we knew she was opposed to a large attention-grabbing party or anything that singled her out, so it was a challenge to find a good way to celebrate.

My sister and I decided to throw a formal dinner party for her in her home. We told her she could have up to 12 guests (we ended up with 9) and we would serve them a formal, 6-course meal. She was excited at the idea, and it was the perfect subtle-yet-special way for her to be celebrated.

The only thing Mom had to do for the whole event was invite her friends. My sister and I took care of the rest. We dressed in black pants and white shirts to set the mood, and we set a beautiful table for them, complete with flowers and candles (Fig 1). We printed menus for the guests to give them an idea of what was to come and we offered a wine list that included several varieties (Fig 2). Soon after they were seated, we took the guests’ drink orders and the six courses began to come out. We served an appetizer, soup, salad, intermezzo, main course, and dessert. (Fig 3-8)

The key to pulling this dinner off was organization. We had talked our way through each course several times before the big night, taking notes of preparation times and the ideal order of steps. We made lists of to-do items for each course and taped them to the cabinet doors in the kitchen. Because everything was thought through ahead of time, we could just go through each list and before we knew it, dinner was over (and the kitchen was a mess!)

The dinner turned out really great. All of our careful planning paid off and the guests had a fun time eating, talking and laughing. Because we were serving them (we did not sit down to eat with them), it had a very formal feeling and the guests felt special to be taken care of so well. The evening was definitely a success — especially when we saw Mom’s face all lit up as she hosted her guests and got such special treatment from her loving daughters.

If you would like to do something like this, my biggest tips for pulling this off successfully are:

1. Practice every dish beforehand
2. Make lists for everything
3. Don’t put too much food on the plate at each course, or else people will get full too fast!

In case you need help planning the menu for your dinner party, here are the recipes for the courses we served:

For even more great dinner party ideas, take a peek at our friend Donna’s About.com site.

P.S. That cheesecake recipe is one that I’ve developed and perfected over the years and it is fantastic!