Sometimes cheap ends up being brilliant – for instance, my latest (and only) party tip: if you’re serving cocktails, hit your local charity shop(s) ahead of time and buy an assortment of glasses.
The key is to deliberately mismatch the glasses – there should be no two the same. Come partytime, each guest gets to choose a unique glass, and keep track of it all evening.
Once the party is over, you can store the glasses for another time, or simply bring them right back to the charity shop. Either way, you can feel (a) brilliant for finding a simple way to tell everyone’s drinks apart and (b) virtuous for reusing someone else’s cast-off glassware and supporting local charities.
Cheers!