Small is beautiful in the party stakes

There have been top-flight pianists performing before and after dinner (I have to confess to getting carried away on one occasion and offering a tuneless rendition from My Fair Lady, the memory of which is still giving me sleepless nights). I've seen thousands of dollars of floral arrangements on festive dining room tables; there have been private dances with big ballgowns and jewels, as if we were in the era of Truman Capote.

Elsewhere, partying has gone corporate. Last Thursday night saw the party of the Russian oil tycoon Len Blavatnik, held at the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum. Apparently, at 9pm the lights went down and an enormous screen showed a video of Blavatnik boasting about his latest acquisition, made that day - the $27 billion takeover of petrochemical producer Lyondell, which, said Blavatnik, made his own privately-held petrochemical company worth more than McDonald's. His guests were torn between admiration and shock. (One described it - between giggles - as "the closest a corporate video has come to morphing into a James Bond film".)

By contrast, Ivanka Trump's cocktail party launching her new jewellery line was a bit lame. There one was proffered rings and bracelets and asked if one wanted to purchase items in the range of $60,000.

But my favourite party this Christmas was much smaller. My fellow British expat, Alice Ryan, 35, whose self-made company consults for Ralph Lauren, LVMH and jeweller Harry Winston, among others, secretly married Kirk Miller, the cofounder of Barker Black, a bespoke English shoe company, last spring. They told no one of their union until November. Then, Alice invited 30 girlfriends to lunch last week at the townhouse of a friend. The invitation consisted of a glorious pink peony in a long-stemmed, hand-blown glass vase, hand-delivered.

At the lunch, each table had antique gold obelisks surrounded by pomegranates and evergreen foliage. At every place was a Dior beauty case and a Jo Malone fragrance (orange blossom, Alice's favourite). It was her post-wedding lunch and she was giving us presents? It was private, intimate and generous. In my book, that's style.

Vicky Ward is contributing editor to Vanity Fair.