Hosting duo Sasha Mei and Amy Yu's guide to throwing a holiday party

Sasha Mei and Amy Yu — queens of the dinner party to those in the know — have a secret to their success: dancing. The pair met as teenage ballerinas, so they understand the beauty of a perfectly orchestrated event — especially when it feels totally effortless. Plus, they know the perfect playlists to get guests to loosen up at the end of the night.

Since founding their supper club, Yu & Mei, two years ago, the duo have created magical dinners for dozens in partnership with brands such as Shiseido, Simons and Joe Fresh. But when CBC Life met them at Sasha's downtown Toronto loft, they had set up a table just as they would for a holiday hang with their closest friends. It was cosy, classic and oh-so-chic, featuring a tablescape that looked like a modern spin on an Old Masters painting with just a touch of glimmer.

Amy and Sasha shared their inspiration behind the setup, plus some expert tips on intimate holiday hosting. Read on for their best advice for planning things out, encouraging conversation, decorating on a budget and making the evening one to remember.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Holiday gatherings, as a guest, are always memorable. But as a host, they can be extremely … stressful. Do you have any expert tips for starting the party-planning process?

Amy Yu: When we start brainstorming for these dinners, we really try to figure out what we want to prioritize. 

What is the focus at this dinner? What is most important to us? What is most important to the guests … and are we doing too much? 

Next, when we organize it, we write like a playbook, but [we call it] our "run of show." You always do a run of show as if it's a full-on production or larger event, going from literally what time guests come, when things are being served... 

Sasha Mei: We include everything on that, so then we have that basically memorized and things go really smoothly because of that.

Speaking of guests: how do you decide on the guest list? There are friends, you might have family in town, you have work colleagues and random friends of friends….

Sasha: I think it's exactly what you just mentioned. We kind of pick people from all categories of life. Obviously, with our work, there is a social presence of a lot of our guests. But I think what makes it really special, and more personal as well, is that we throw in people from our personal lives in there, and that creates a really interesting dynamic. 

It creates fresh new faces. It creates fresh conversation. And I think conversation is one of those things … you can plan all you want for a beautiful dinner party, but the vibe is not something that you can buy.

A dinner party really is led by conversation. How do you create a seating chart to make that happen?

Amy: As much as we love putting friends together, the whole purpose of this is to build these new, genuine connections. So really, [we] think about who has what personality ... who has these secret interests or passion projects that they're working on that we can put side by side to get them talking.

Sasha: There are people who just need a little bit more time to be brought out of their shell [as well] ... we put them next to chatty people who might draw out their personality and be really good at that.

Could you tell us a little bit about the scene that you've styled here?

Amy: We're not really about typical holiday decor in the sparkly sense. I think we like to keep things a little bit more subdued, a little bit more sophisticated and timeless. 

So our way of doing that is not necessarily through classic red, but maybe through a shade like burgundy that does feel a little bit more elevated, and notes of silver instead of sparkle — the silver does feel very classy and elegant [here]. 

Fruits and adding warmth through browns and wood is always a good idea, and then we always have a fun element to our tablescape, so we do that through plates and glasses.

Do you ever thrift or use vintage pieces? 

Sasha: Oh, yeah, all the time. We love Value Village, Salvation Army. We love antique stores — 

Amy: We love borrowing from our parents! 

Sasha: We love borrowing from our parents. We love Etsy. We like anything like that. That does make [a party] feel unique. 

So you do a bit of shopping from your own closet, then? Many of us probably have something that we don't even realize could be a great centrepiece.

Amy: Our first wine night, we started off with fabric scraps from my mom's fabric bin, and we turned those into table runners; we turned those into decorative elements for wine bottles. We used what we had … and people were really excited by it.

A lot of people might shy away from having a dinner party because, like, that's going to cost so much money! Any tips for sticking to a budget? 

Amy: When you invite guests to your home, people love helping out and feeling like they can contribute to a dinner. 

We love when our friends ask what kind of wine they can bring, because it opens up our repertoire for the wines that we know and love — and that's a cost off our plate. 

Sasha: If people want to bring dishes, bring dishes. People love to bring host gifts, but I don't … you don't need a stockpile of candles. Have someone bring you flowers, and then put those flowers on the table.

Do you have any advice on hosting in a small space? A lot of people don't have a separate dining room and separate plates and separate everything.

Amy: Use what you have. You don't need to flip a whole room around. We often find the best dinners or best hangs are when we're sitting around a coffee table on the ground and people are lying about. My apartment is quite small. We literally use our island that we cook on as the dining table. We just throw a tablecloth on top, and it kind of changes it all. 

Sasha: A tablecloth works wonders. People love a picnic, and folding tables are such a gift to this world.

Amy: A folding table with a nice linen tablecloth on top is the jam.