How To Introduce Party Guests That Have Not Met Before

When throwing a party, your role as the host can be a stressful and demanding one. One of the trickiest situations – and a large cause for pre-party nerves – is introducing people to one another who have not met before. No one wants their party to be awkward, and particularly if throwing a large party, you will probably be inviting groups of friends you know from different walks of life – who have had no contact before.

While one can usually rely on the more confident guests to make chit-chat and bridge the gap between friendship groups, this is not necessarily a given. Therefore, unless you want your party to be full of pockets of people who are not interacting with one another, you’ll need to step up to the plate in your role of host.

Every time someone new arrives, make the point of introducing them to the people already in the room. Approach each existing guest in turn and introduce them to one another; it is then their prerogative if they wish to continue the conversation or not, and your role is complete. At the very least, you will have reduced the likelihood of those pockets of groups.

To really create a seamless transition between friends, add in a sentence or two about each person. For example: “This is John, he’s a colleague of mine and loves fishing. And John, this is Stuart, we know each other from college and he’s a huge movie fan.” You have now provided a jumping-off point for conversation, and won yourself a couple of host points, too!