As you become older, last-minute parties and gatherings become more of a regular occurrence in your life.

Gone are the days when you made a huge hassle about birthday and holiday parties, when you get older, you relish the days when booth good weather and free time align so you can get together with your friends to have a few drinks, some good food and conversation.

And if you’re not taking advantage of one of your close friends’ hospitality, you’re probably the one responsible for organizing a party. In best case scenario, you have two days to organize the whole party. So here are a couple of things you can do to make sure you and your guests have a great time…

1.      Figure Out the Number of Guests

First and foremost, you need to call the people… And when figuring out the guest list, you have to consider how many people your home can comfortably fit. Here you can take a page from the House Party Toolkit and take the square footage of your house and divide it by five. The idea here is that every person needs roughly five feet of space. Also, you should assume that around 20% of your guests won’t come… And this will allow you to know how much food you’ll need to serve per guest…

2.      Tidy the Place Up Quickly

And right you’re done sending emails, messages or calling your friends, you should get up immediately, tidy your place up a bit and make it look presentable. But don’t overdo it – there’s no need to waste a few hours on it if you clean your house on a regular basis. As Sarah Brooks writes for She-Knows, an average mother spends anywhere between 10 and 20 hours cleaning every week, so a short 20-minute cleaning session should be enough to keep your mind at ease…

3.      Keep the Fridge Stocked Up

You should always have some standard snacks like chips, dips and crackers at hand, just in case an impromptu get-together happens. With a well-stacked pantry and fridge, you can have guests over at any time, because you won’t have to run to the store. And just a heads up – be careful how you’re presenting the food and snacks… As The Guardian reports, recent studies have shown that an artful plate of food actually tastes better.

4.      Set the Mood with the Right Lighting

Your party is good just as your music is… And while the genre choice depends on you, there’s a number of different applications that allow the guests to contribute to the playlist. For instance with Grooveshark’s DJtxt – which will send song recommendations to your guests via SMS – you won’t have to play the DJ whole night… and if you really want to set the mood, you can get some LED lighting or sync-up your holiday lights to the music…

5.      Get Your Guest Mingling

The whole point of your party is of course, is to enjoy the time with your old friends and help them enjoy each other, so you should do a couple of things to help them mingle. For example, companies that specialize in gala dinner planning often put drinks and snacks in strategic places to encourage movement and socializing. Also, if you really want the people to move around the house, you can invite more guests than you have chairs and let them walk around and mingle with each other…

Final Thoughts

After a day of running around to throw a last-minute party, you need to remember to relax, sit down and enjoy some good time with your closest friends. In most situations, we worry so much about small things that our guests probably won’t even notice that we forget to enjoy ourselves. But all the hard work should be done by the time you guests arrive, so you need to stop stressing for a couple of hours and have some fun…