Some people have the patience, time, and talent to create Instagram-ready
But what about the rest of us, mere mortals, busy moms (and dads), or lazy folks?
Throwing a French themed party really isn’t that hard.
With just a few special touches, you can throw a French-themed party that will give your guests just the right amount of oh la la .without killing yourself.
More importantly, I want to point out that there is no single formula for throwing a French themed party.
- For some parties, such as a girl’s Parisian-themed birthday party, you may want to focus on French-themed decor dripping with French vibes.
- For others, throwing a low-key get-together with discreet little French touches is enough.
- Others may want something a little showier, with elegant French-themed touches.
- And some may want to focus on French themed food rather than all the glitzy French decor.
The art of French hospitality
Before we jump into the French party decor ideas, let’s talk about French hospitality.
A big part of the art of hospitality in France is to be present and enjoy your guests. In fact, it’s rude not to be present.
I learned this lesson the hard way when my friends here in France scolded me for tending to the party details instead of joining in on the festivities.
It’s a simple concept, but it can be challenging to do.
Floor your guests with these French themed party ideas
Cherry-pick what you like from this list of French themed party ideas to create a unique celebration that gels with your needs, personality, and budget.
French Themed Music
Adding French background music is an easy way to get this French vibes and take your French-themed dinner party to the next level, full sensory.
You don’t have to blast the music; keep the volume low to add to the ambiance.
I won’t pretend to know your taste, so you’ll have to do some research based on the type of party, age, and setting.
Luckily there are French playlists on YouTube and Spotify that people have already created. All you have to do is find the playlist you like and let it play in the background.
Want to play some classically French songs?
Here’s a short list of classic French songs that you can play quietly in the background.
I have a longer list of French songs here..71 Most famous French songs of France of all time: That everyone knows
- La Vie en rose – Edith Piaf
- Non, Je ne regrette rien – Edith Piaf
- Ne Me Quitte Pas – Jacques Brel
- Douce France – Charles Trenet
- Je T’aime moi non plus – Serge Gainsbourg
- Sous le Ciel de Paris – Edith Piaf
- Comme d’Habitude – Claude Francios (Frank Sinatra used the melody of this song for his famous I did it my way” song. )
- Les Champs Elysees – Joe Dassin
- Ne me quitte pas- Jacque Brel –
- La bohème – Charles Aznavour
- Je suis venu te dire que je m’en vais – Serge Gainsbourg
- J’aime les fille – Jacque Dutronc
- Je ne t’aim plus – Man chao
- Les champs-Elysées – Joe Dassin
- Quelqu’un m’a dit – Carla Bruni
- Ella, elle l’a – France Gall
- Poupée de cire, poupée de son – France Gall
- Mistral gagnat – Renaud
- Il est cinq heures, Paris s’éveille – Jacques Dutronc
- Alors on danse – Stromae
- Bella – Gims
- Balance ton quoi – Angèle
- Dernière danse – Indila
French-themed party decor ideas
French market “vibe” dinner party
The French market vibe is an elegant and simple theme that’s not hard to accomplish.
- A simple white tablecloth
- French linen napkins are an understated, simple and classic way to add that French touch.
- Serve a charcuterie board,
cheese board and other French food items on a buffet table. Don’t forget the French baguettes, which you can serve in a wicker basket - You can even add some of those mini chalkboards on the table that vendors at French markets use in France.
Here are some ideas:
Set of 12 (17 x 17 inches) - for Events & Home Use (Red)
This acacia wood baguette slicer does double duty as a beautiful centrepiece and cuts perfect diagonal slices every time.
This versatile 3 peice board is made of Acacia wood. It has magnets to connect 1) 13" square cutting board to the 2) halves round boards to create a 26" long wooden board that's perfect for serving cheese, meets, crudities and more.
Don’t forget the flowers for that final touch.
Even if you’re not the type of person who likes flowers, a bouquet at a dinner party can elevate a table of takeout food into something boho chic.
It’s a super simple way to add a bit of class and colour to any gathering.
It can be as simple as a few old mason jars filled with sprigs of lavender or Lilly of the valley. Or a bouquet of French lavender flowers.
Or you can go with something a little more patriotic, like blue, white and red carnations, which are the colours of the
Patriotic Bastille Day Themed Party
For a Bastille Day-themed party, the easiest way to get the biggest bang for your effort is to make a big show of blue, white, and red:
In French ,Bastille day is called fête national and it’s France’s national day.
- Put up some
French flag banners. A French flag tablecloth.- Scatter your house with blue white, and red balloons.
- Maybe kick off the party with La Marseillaise, the French national anthem.
Here are some ideas.
For 16 Guests
French Themed New Years’ Eve Party
Like Christmas, New Year, and New Years’ Eve celebrations are a big deal in France. The decor for a French New Year’s Eve celebration will be pretty similar to what you probably already do, balloons, streamers, etc.
But the food typically served at a french new years eve party is probably different than what you’re used to.
French New Years’ Eve Food Traditions: Is It Too Weird For You?
French costume party:
Costume parties are always fun, even when it’s not Halloween. But a costume party with a French theme will elevate your party to the next level.
Ask your guests to come disguised as their favourite french historical figure, movie character or French cliché.
Some ideas for a French costume:
- Amelie from the French movie Amélie (aka “The fabulous world of Amélie”)
- Marie Antoinette
- Napoleon
- King Louis the IX
- French Soldier
- French Peasant
- French nobleman or woman
- Tell everyone to come dressed in a striped blue shirt (une Marinière)
Related: 40 French inspired costume ideas for adults
Paris themed Eiffel Tower Birthday Party for girls:
Throwing a Paris Party birthday isn’t that hard if you have a few
A signature Punch or Cocktail
Champagne is nice to have, but it isn’t the end all be all. Plus, champagne might not be in your budget for larger parties.
On the other hand, a signature cocktail is a lot like a bouquet of flowers. They seem fancy but require minimal effort.
Aperol Spritz
Aperol Spritz is a bright orange-coloured and bubbly Italian Aperitif that is quite popular in Europe and France, especially during the hot summers. It’s an easy cocktail to concoct with only three ingredients and a garnish.
- Aperol
- Bubbly such as Prosecco, but champagne will work, and so will sparkling wine.
- Sparkling water or soda water
- An orange or lemon slice.
The exact recipe for Aperol is a trade secret but the recipe hasn’t changed in over 100 years since it was first created in 1919. Its key ingredients include bitter and sweet oranges, rhubarb, and various herbs and roots.
Blue White And Red Punch (Non-Alcoholic)
A tri-coloured punch using the
The trick is to use three different coloured liquids with three different amounts of sugar to prevent the liquids from mixing.
The liquid with the most sugar goes in first, and the one with the least sugar goes in last.
- Cranberry (Very sugary and red)
- Blue Gatorade (less sugary than cranberry)
- Diet Sprite or 7up (no sugar)
Here’s a video so you can see how it’s done.
Beautifully Infused Water
Everyone needs water at a party, but it doesn’t mean it has to be boring.
Place some infused water on the table and infuse it with anything from lemons and strawberries to rosemary and cucumbers. It’s little touches like these that will impress your guests.
Orangina and Perrier
And for the truly lazy host, serve a little Orangina and perrier. Kids love Orangina, by the way.
Easy French-Themed Dinner Party Food Ideas
When you invite friends and family over for a party, especially a dinner party, they expect to eat something. Even at a child’s birthday party, kids expect to eat cake.
But you don’t need to be a French chef to cook a la Francaise.
Many French meals are simpler to make than they look.
For the lazy host or hostess, there are plenty of easy French one-pot meals, recipes and fancy-looking appetizers that are straightforward to make.
You need to decide whether you want to throw a buffet-style dinner party, a sit-down dinner party, or an apéro dînatoire, where guests have the equivalent of a full meal eating small plates.
Here are my favourite easy dishes to serve at dinner parties and celebrations:
This set of four plates are perfect for serving small bites, dessert, a small salad or cheese. They're dishwasher and microwave safe too.
Cheese Board
No French-themed party would be complete without a cheeseboard. The genius thing about cheese boards is that you don’t have to cook anything and can prepare it in advance.
Charcuterie Board
Step up your
Charcuterie boards can be as simple or as fancy as you want. Some ideas for things you can put on your cheeseboard include:
- Baguettes
- Tapenade
- Olives
- Grapes
- Apple slices
- Nuts
A how-to guide for crafting beautiful and delicious cheese boards. Marissa Mullen takes the guesswork out of the coolest thing to bring to any party or potluck: the cheese platter. The author uses a simple cheese by numbers method to guarantee a stunning cheese plate every time. Each cheese plate includes a key, which shows you exactly what to put on your grocery list.
The classic slate board makes a great cheese board or Charcuterie board to serve your favourite cheeses and cured meats at dinner parties. Use chalk to identify the different food items on the platter.
Baked Brie
Baked
You don’t even need a recipe.
I always score or remove some of the top rind, which tends to get hard or rubbery when baked.
Then I insert slivers of garlic into the scored cheese and top with rosemary.
Another favourite recipe of mine is to top my
Just before your guests arrive, pop it in the oven, covered with aluminum foil or in a special
French Tapas On Baguettes
If you like Spanish Tapas or Bruschetta, the lazy host in you will love serving your guest baguette tapas which you make ahead.
To keep things simple, I suggest making 2 to 5 different toppings.
Some French tapas recipe ideas:
- Rillettes de Thon (Tuna Rillette) is a sort of creamy tuna paté that looks a lot like tuna salad. The key difference is that there’s no mayonnaise in tuna rillettes. Instead, it’s made with creme fraiche or liquid cream, mustard, chives, and shallots. It’s easy to find premade in France and a popular apéro or appetizer that anyone can whip up in less than 5 minutes.
- Tapenade (Olive spread) is a puréed or finely chopped olives, capers, and anchovies and almost always makes an appearance on tables at parties and celebrations in France.
- Anchoïade (Anchovy spread) is puréed anchovy, olive oil, garlic, parsley, lemon juice and a dash of pepper. It sounds scary, but the first time I had Anchoïade, my eyes lit up with delight. Serve this with some carrots, cucumbers and celery.
- Charcuterie and cheese
- Brie cheese
For vegetarians and vegans
If you have vegetarian or vegan guests, you can adapt your recipe and toppings, which is something I have done for my son’s girlfriend, who is a vegan.
French vegans are rare in France, but their numbers are growing each year, to the french butcher’s dismay.
Blinis Canapés
It might surprise you to learn that a popular appetizer for social gatherings in France are Blinis, which are of Russian origin.
Nevertheless, blinis are widely available in French grocery stores, especially during the holiday season, but you can easily make them at home with a blini pan.
You don’t need a blini pan, but it helps to keep the blinis uniformly shaped. In around 30 minutes, you can pump out enough blinis for an army.
Tropical French-style Blini toppings include:
- Smoked salmon and Boursin: Boursin is hard to find outside France, but cream cheese is a good replacement.
In French grocery stores, these two Greek toppings are almost always sold alongside or near blinis, but again, you can make these at home.
- Greek Tarama: A bright pink mixture that looks like a salmon spread but is made with fish eggs. David Lebovitz explains what Tamara is here.
- Greek tzatziki:
Pain Surprise (Surprise bread)
Pain surprise (French for surprise bread) usually shows up at gatherings, picnics and end-of-year celebrations in France. You can even, but them premade.
Before coming to France, I had never heard of pain surprise. But when you attend enough social gatherings in France, you learn something new every time. That’s the beauty of having French friends.
Pain surprise is a bunch of different sandwiches cut into triangles, neatly piled high together like a giant puzzle.
The surprise is that you never know what sandwich you’ll get. Sometimes French hosts and hostesses hide the sandwiches in a hollowed-out round loaf of bread when guests go to reach for the bread, SURPRISE SANDWICHES!
There are several ways to make this using different bread, but the sandwiches are almost always crustless.
Watch this video to see how this French cook does it by hollowing out a round loaf of bread.
Easy (ish) main course French meals
Rather than cook a four-course French meal with different components, cook a one-pot or one-dish meal.
One delicious meal can be just as good, if not better, than an intricate or complicated menu.
Quiche
There’s a reason why quiche is a popular dish at French social gatherings in France.
It’s because they’re super easy to make.
By the way, quiche is not breakfasted food in France.
With just a few eggs and ingredients, you can whip up a delicious quiche In less than 15 minutes. Throw it in the oven for about 30 minutes, and your guests will say, oh la la, merci beaucoup.
Serve two or more types of quiche with a light salad, cheese plate and some wine, and you’re done.
Here are some quiche recipe ideas
- Quiche Lorraine
- Salmon and broccoli quiche
- Chevre and zucchini quiche
- Spinach and feta quiche
- Tomato and thyme quiche
- Mushrooms and blue
cheese quiche - Asparagus and parmesan quiche
Bouillabaisse:
Take a page from Julia Child’s cookbook and recreate her delicious French Bouillabaisse.
This make-ahead one-pot hearty French Provençal seafood stew has a wide variety of seafood and shellfish swimming in a rich tomato base made of Garlic, saffron, and olive oil.
Serve with some toasted bread, and voila! The blog FamilyStyleFood.com has the recipe for Julia’s child’s Bouillabaisse so that you can recreate this dish for your next French-themed dinner party.
By the way, Marseille is the capital and home to some of the best bouillabaisse, not Paris.
Beef Bourgignon
Another of Julia Child’s classic French recipes is Beef Bourgigon which elevates a simple beef stew to an art form, plus it’s relatively simple to make, provided you give yourself enough time to let it stew.
Coq au vin (chicken in wine sauce)Braised chicken in wine sauce)
Coq au Vin is an old-school French dish of braised chicken stew in red wine sauce. Usually, you simmer this dish for a few hours, but if you have an instant pot, the process moves along much more quickly. Salt and Lavender has a wonderful coq au vin recipe that you can follow.
Soupe au pistou: Pesto soup
This is the French provençal version of Italian minestrone soup.
Like minestrone soup, French pistou soup is a hearty soup from Provence made with vegetables, potatoes, and beans topped with French pistou (pesto without pine nuts). French pistou soup is also not tomato-based.
It doesn’t get any easier than this. Serve with some baguettes and wine, and you’re all set.
Ratatouille:
Ratatouille is a specialty from Nice, France, and it’s one of my favourite dishes to make.
It looks fancy, tastes so rich and uses ingredients you probably already have on hand, eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes and basil.
Some recipes call for baking your ratatouille, while others will have you cook the vegetables separately in a pan before adding them together to stew in a pot together.
Tian Provençal
Tian Provençal is similar to ratatouille in that they use similar (or the same) ingredients, except that the vegetables are sliced and layered together like dominoes. The effect is fresh and visually stunning.
Vegetable Tian with Mozerella
This dish is prepared just like Tian provençal, except you add slices of mozzarella between the slices of vegetables.
Mussels and Fries (Moules et frites)
Honestly, it doesn’t get any easier than Moules et Frites (French for mussels and fries). The Fries are more difficult to make than the mussels. All you have to decide is what recipe you want to make.
White wine and garlic, Mariners, cream and parsley, blue cheese, curry, etc.
David Lebovitz has a wonderfully simple mussel and fries recipe.
Raclette:
When someone in France invites you over for
I’m a big fan of raclette for intimate family dinners and small parties with less than ten guests.
All you need to do is set up your meats and cheeses on a platter along with baguettes and some boiled potatoes, gather around the table and let everyone serve themselves.
This raclette machine is the ultimate cheese melter. It features 8 cheese raclette pans to melt your favourite cheese in minutes. Dishwasher safe Non-stick Grilling Plate and Cooking Stone.
Ham & Cheese Croissant Sandwiches
There’s nothing simpler than sandwiches, but using croissants instead of bread is a nice touch for a casual get-together. Don’t forget the Grey Poupon mustard. I’m teasing.
French potato casserole dishes
Nothing is more comforting and easier to make than Potato au gratin. I have a list of 7 one pot French potato casserole dishes here.
Easy French Themed Party Dessert Ideas
Creme Brulée
Although creme brulée looks challenging to make, it’s actually pretty simple if you have the right tools.
Creme brulé is simply a baked custard made with cream, sugar and egg yolks with a thin layer of sugar which you torch until crispy and caramelized with a mini kitchen torch. You can also make creme brulée in casserole dishes and broil the sugar until caramelized.
If you’ve ever watched the French film Amélie, you know that Amélie loves to crack the caramelized sugar on the creme brulée with her spoon.
Make this deliciously rich dessert a day in advance and serve chilled.
Waffle or crepe station with the fixings
Macarons
For a lighter dessert, offer some macarons and chocolates to your guests with a coffee and after-dinner drink.
Macarons are a little tricky to make. Please don’t feel bad; none of my French friends know how to make them either. Luckily you can easily order them online.
Electric non-stick crepe maker and griddle makes 12" crepes.
Digestif Drinks
And last but not least, don’t forget to offer an after-dinner drink, les digestifs.
Although after-dinner digestif drinks aren’t an everyday thing, It’s more common at casual get-togethers in France than in other cultures where they might be considered too chichi, pretentious or highbrow. So when it’s time to serve the coffee, break out a digestif for your guests.
I wrote a whole post about all the different after-dinner digestif drinks you could serve to guests here.
Coffee
French coffee presses serve a function and add a nice touch to the diner table at the end of the meal.
Laissez les bons temps rouler
One last thing, don’t forget to greet your guests with a French cheek kiss for that je ne sais quoi.
Let the good times roll at your next French-themed party celebration, birthday party, anniversary or special occasion.
