Hosting a memorable dinner party is an art. You can prepare something spectacular that no one else has offered your dinner guests before, or cook something you have made so many times that you've refined the recipe to perfection. But really, it's rarely the food that makes a dinner special. Instead, it's everything connected with it that turns the meal into an event to remember. The company and the setting make the feast.

This is where the gazebo comes in. Buy a gazebo and you'll always have the perfect room for dinner parties. The large windows create a bright and comfortable environment. You'll always be close to nature, but not sitting outdoors, so you won't be dependent on the weather. If you have a gazebo, you don't need a plan B. Regardless of whether it's sunny and hot or rainy with hail showers, there's always a party atmosphere in the gazebo. You can even grow herbs in some large pots, as they smell wonderful and make the atmosphere of the gazebo even more pleasant.

If you can install a small kitchen in the gazebo it's even easier to have dinner there. The kitchen doesn't have to be very advanced. A couple of hotplates and an oven go a long way. Buy a ready-made kitchen island with a sink and refrigerator and you’re even better equipped with preferably a kitchen fan to avoid the smell of frying. A carbon filter fan, for example, doesn't require a ventilation system.

It's also easy to host large dinners in the gazebo even if you can't have a kitchen in it and cook the food in there. A portable hob or hotplate for keeping food warm doesn't cost much, but even that isn't really necessary. You can have a barbecue in your garden or on the patio just outside. You can cook other things in your home and bring them out. Get help from the diners if needed, as people like to feel useful.

Choosing the right lighting is important and worth taking time over. If you don't want your guests to fall asleep when darkness falls, you need light, both inside the gazebo and outside so that the feeling of space you experience when you look out the window of the house isn’t wasted. You can be creative with outdoor lighting, using strip lighting, lanterns in the trees and solar lights on the ground.

If it's possible to move away from the dining table after eating, that's an added bonus. A few sofas for a nice hang out after dinner can loosen things up. If there's no space in the gazebo itself, then a patio with outdoor furniture can reduce the pressure. If you set up infrared heating, it can even be used year-round.