Dinner Party Conversation Starter

At a fun multi-family lake trip each night we would gather around the table, we took turns making the dinner each night and the dinner would always start with 2 questions for each person: “what was your pony today?” and “what was your flippin’ unicorn today?” It was so fun for the kids and adults. The kids responses were priceless.

I love this one: you say three things about yourself – two true and one false – and the group has to guess which one is a lie! It’s always hysterical.

A colleague is big on improv. He sent an article to me about a game that is super fun- word ball. So now my husband and I have started to play: I say a word “pizza” and my husband will say whatever comes into his head “Italian” and around it goes. Lots of laughs and can be played with any number of friends.

It was quite possibly your website that gave me this idea initially by posting a link to the article, but I can’t remember for sure. It was a NY Times article about how granny panties were back in style and thongs were oppressive, anti-feminist. I remember being totally shocked by this article. (Full disclosure: I’m a former college volleyball player and those spandex we wore meant we all got very comfortable with wearing thongs.) A few days later was my 29th birthday, and I invited a bunch of my girlfriends over for a casual dinner. I brought up the granny panties vs. thongs debate and it led to the most hilarious conversation.

Haha! I was wondering where the part was where she shared the icebreaker that really worked! I would feel kind of mortified to go first for this “game”. I do love the idea of sharing one thing at a time around in a circle. I’m going to a big dinner with some close friends and some strangers this weekend, so I think I’ll try it!

I love that! It can be so awkward but icebreakers are fun get to know yous

I have to add my latest dinner party question …. it has generated some great discussion. “Who in the world is the person who is most like you?” Most like you might = personality, quirks, appearance, lifestyle, workstyle, etc. Not surprisingly, many will say that one of their children is most like them. [I have two sons. My eldest is so like my husband, it’s spooky. My youngest son is incredibly similar to me in many many ways and we really understand each other on a deep level.] However, many are stumped, saying “NO one is much like me.” Which I find really cool – that on a planet of billions of people, we are unique.

I would get so nervous about that but it sounds like it worked out
xo
http://www.laurajaneatelier.com

I live with a bunch of my best friends and we have people over all the time and are well known for having fun dinner parties/parties/movie nights etc. There are a number of things we always do for example the random facts or weirdest thing about yourself, or an embarassing story, the trick is one of us always starts out with something super weird so people wont begin with the boring stuff! We also play a game called would you rather (ex would you rather loose an arm or a leg), some would you rathers are heavier than others but it always gets people talking. We are all from different countries so there is always a Caipirinha night or Colombian Arepas night, or german tea time etc :D

First of all, you don’t drink coffee? Say what? haha.

I am not 100% convinced about this icebreaker, seems a little bit forced, although if it worked for this dinner I am sure it will work for others.
I would rather have the host start conversations that are interesting and relevant for the table, but, at the same time… it is all good if you had a good time. I will try it.

At our last staff meeting, our Director had us each take some M&Ms from a small bowl that was sitting at the center of the table…but we couldn’t eat them! At the beginning of the meeting she said for each M&M we took we had to say something about ourselves. It was interesting…some people only took a few, while others took as many as 20!

Ice breakers are so fun! I love playing “have you ever” and then making teams to do a scavenger hunt. I think I did that once in a college class and thought it could totally work for a dinner party.

Ummm. Tom Cruise’s assistant? I’m sure she has some good stuff in her pocket for party stories!

LOVE this! I do an ice breaker at the very beginning of every team meeting and we all end up learning a lot about each other and laughing a ton. Great way to lighten the mood before diving into business!

Sitting with strangers for dinner can be tough. My husband loves to ask, “What is the first concert you ever attended?” Everyone has an answer. So many of the concerts are incredibly vintage and cool. It is an instant conversation. What was your first concert? Mine….Cyndi Lauper!

I recently attended a family reunion where there were cousins I had not seen in 40 years! We played this game sort of in reverse. Our hostess prepared trivia questions about all the family members and (we had sent her facts we thought no one else knew), we had to guess who it was. It was the best part of the reunion! One cousin gave himself a hemroidectomy! No lie!

I love ice breakers, but this one is way too open-ended, it’s so much pressure! My favorite is, “What’s the story behind your name?” People end up having such interesting stories about the family member they were named for, or their parents’ time in a hippie commune, or whatever. And as a bonus, it helps learn everyone’s names :)