Plan Out a Cool Rustic Mood Board

As you start planning your March dinner party, create a mood board to anchor your design. We recommend designing your dinner party with a blend of both comfort and elegance.

For a frosty après-ski theme, focus on cool colors, like blues, greens, silver, and notes of gold. Make sure to balance class with rustic touches for the perfect mix of rugged luxury. Our ideal mood board features elegant white and silver tablecloths and plates, gold silverware, and notes of blue and green in the centerpieces and napkins.

Jay Wilde

Add Natural Details

Surprisingly, après-ski might be one of the easier dinner party themes to decorate on a budget. Grab some sticks and evergreen branches from your backyard for the centerpieces, use any silverware you have, and thrift a few white and blue taper candles if you don't already have some. If you hosted the coastal-themed dinner party in January, you can reuse most of those decorations as well. As long as you stick to a broad theme of rustic elegance, you can't go wrong.

Jason Donnelly

Prepare a Fondue Dinner

Don't forget to plan the menu at least a few days ahead of the party. Some dinner parties need at least a week to plan, prep, and shop, but this dinner doesn't need quite as much advance planning.

As guests arrive, have drinks ready on a tray so your friends can grab one as they enter. Dirty martinis and red wine are two great options for this theme, and are easy to prep and pour. Have a few non-alcoholic options as a thoughtful touch for your guests. Also, place a tray of fruit and veggies out for people to snack on before dinner.

For dinner, we're serving a cabbage salad with crispy chicken, apple slices, and a Dijon glaze dressing. This salad is simple yet contains a showstopping crispiness that will leave your guests delighted and satisfied.

The main course for this themed dinner has to be cheese fondue. When you prep the veggie trays for the beginning of the night, make a few more for the main course so people can dip vegetables in the cheese. Have a few options of both fresh and roasted vegetables to choose from. Cut a few loaves of French bread or baguette into cubes and put them on the fondue trays as well. Feel free to add cubes of cured meat, slices of sausage, apple slices, and even pickles to the trays for a unique dipping option.

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Jason Donnelly

Finish the Night with S'mores and Karaoke

For a fun end to this après-ski party, set out a self-serve s'mores station for dessert. This allows your guests to stop by when they're ready for a sweet treat after an indulgently delicious meal. All you need is a bowl of marshmallows, a bowl of graham crackers, a bowl of chocolate bars, and a small tabletop fire bowl with a few sticks for roasting. If you want to keep the fondue theme going, set out a small chocolate fondue pot instead of chocolate bars.

An après-ski party is the ideal time for people to mingle and relax after a long day on the slopes. So all you need for entertainment is some background music. To make things interesting, set up a karaoke machine so your guests can be the entertainment while also entertaining themselves. This way, guests can step up to sing if they wish, or let the playlist play as they chat and mingle.

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