A long first week of cramming into the dining hall to see old friends might put exhausted students in the mood for a black-tie dinner out, but luxurious events aren’t always affordable.
Despite this obstacle, there are cost-conscious ways to bring these opulent dinner parties home to your dorm. Swap $17 mezcal cocktails for cheap Trader Joe’s wine, and drop the hundred dollar table settings for reusable decor with this guide to putting on a fancy dorm feast on a budget.
Decor to make the Ritz-Carlton jealous
While a night out at one of D.C.’s many Michelin-star restaurants may include freshly picked bouquets and hand-engraved placards, you can decorate the site of your dinner party in a sustainable and sophisticated way without breaking the bank.
The Georgetown Flea Market, open on Sundays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., is full of local tchotchkes and opportunities to find a tablecloth to transform your wobbly GW-issued dinner table into a setting fit for a banquet hall. Whether you want a floral print placemat to preserve the summer’s natural beauty or you like the clean simplicity of a white tablecloth, the Georgetown Flea Market may have what you’re looking for. Or, if you’ve finally upgraded from a twin XL bed, you can repurpose an old sheet that no longer fits your new bed or any other tapestry you might have laying around.
To take your decor to the next level, adorn your new tablecloth with battery-powered candles and flowers. A gorgeous bouquet of tulips, lilies, roses or any flower adds some color to the room. You can even make your own flowers with duct tape or origami paper to give the whole party a real do-it-yourself college feel.
Place your florals, fresh or faux, in a leftover wine bottle from the last time you had company and scatter flower petals among your plates and flatware. Create place cards for your guests using paper and markers, play jazzy background music like you might hear in a Nora Ephron movie and embrace the elegance of a proper dinner party.
Colonel Mustard slayed his murder mystery party in a Shenkman Quad
A theme with movies, games and costumes helps put the ‘party’ in ‘dinner party.’ Plus, firing up a movie at home or playing charades gives you a way to create lasting bonds at no cost.
A tried-and-true classic, the murder mystery party is one of the easiest themes to implement. Assign people roles from the board game “Clue” and instruct them to come dressed in the colors corresponding to their characters. Then, lay out various “murder weapons” you might have laying around the house like scissors or butter knives and invent a murder mystery that your guests must solve. While the game might be labor intensive, nothing brings new friends closer together quite like trying to hunt down a mysterious killer — just look at any slasher film. Plus, party planning aficionados online have already done some of the heavy lifting, and you can choose from a variety of internet guides as a jumping-off point for your event.
If acting and role-playing games aren’t your speed, opt for a movie-themed dinner party. Pick a film, instruct your guests to dress as the movie’s characters and follow up your meal with a dorm watch party. Say you’re a big “Pulp Fiction” fan — visitors can come wearing oversized suits to enjoy Big Kahuna burgers and fries drowned in mayo while jamming to Misirlou. Or if you’re more in the mood for “Mean Girls,” have guests come decked out in pink and serve some toaster strudels.
Cocktails, mocktails and wines — oh my!
Drinks help take your dinner party from a regular Monday in the dining hall to a fancy Friday night in D.C. You can find affordable wines at Trader Joe’s, like Merlot and Chardonnay for as low as $5, or at local favorite, McReynold’s Liquors, where you can find Barefoot, the quintessential cheap college wine — made even more affordable by the 10 percent GW student discount.
Almost every part of GW has some sort of D.C. theming to it, and there’s no reason that your dinner party can’t have the same. After a McReynold’s run, try whipping up a Gin Rickey, a dry cocktail with gin, lime juice and club soda named after a 19th century D.C. lobbyist. Or embrace your patriotic side and make a Red, White and Blue Martini, containing blue curaçao and grenadine for the colorful additions. Make your own version of the Wolf Spritzer, the El Presidente cocktail with Aperol and mezcal, which went viral when the drink’s news host namesake celebrated drinking one just hours before Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race.
A communal kitchen-friendly meal
You can’t have a dorm dinner party without the most important ingredient: food. Providing a home-cooked meal to a party of friends on a college student budget can sound intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be.
For those in dorms like Thurston and Mitchell, where you don’t have access to a full in-room kitchen, try stopping by Trader Joe’s to assemble all you need for microwavable merrymaking. The grocery chain’s frozen meals tend to range from $2 to $5 and can include anything from boba to chicken shawarma.
If you’d rather shop local and live in a locale with a kitchen, check out the Dupont Circle Farmers Market, where you can find artisanal cheese stands and other charcuterie essentials for everyone to enjoy while you put the finishing touches on the night’s main course.
“If you are what you eat, then I only want to eat the good stuff”
If you’re fortunate enough to have a full kitchen in your room, get your Remy the Rat on and cook a multicourse meal. There’s no shortage of cheap meals to make depending on how much cooking you’d like to do.
If you’re a regular Anthony Bourdain, ready to control each and every aspect of the meal, try putting together an Italian feast. Boxed pasta and canned sauce aren’t going to balloon your budget, and the ease of cooking simple dishes can let you focus on whipping up some sides like a Caesar salad or minestrone soup.
But if you’re more in the mood to delegate ingredient preparation, try putting together a taco night. Your friends can take on different components of the meal — with one hand-mashing avocados to make guacamole, one toiling over the stovetop to ensure the meat won’t overcook and one at the blender, serving up margaritas all evening long.
Perhaps cooking any food is a bit too much of a lift on a college student schedule, or you simply don’t have a kitchen. Check out any number of sit-down locales in Foggy Bottom with affordable takeout, like local Thai spot Charm Thai, where entrees tend to cost around $15, or GW student favorite Tonic, where your visitors can build their own burger from the ground up for $15.
