Your starter for six

Smoked salmon and really good brown bread and butter

A nice Pate with toast or cracker type biscuits, or a bowl of homemade soup. Mary Berry made a really simple tomato soup using tinned tomatoes on her programme last night.
www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2333242/Mary-Berry-Special-Easy-tomato-soup-pesto.html
Served with some nice bread yum.

I vote for gillybobs suggestion. Sounds like a good match with beef Wellington.

Smoked mackerel pate, toast and side salad.

Steamed Asparagus spears wrapped in Parma ham with a delicate coating of Hollandaise sauce. Looks lovely and tastes delish.

Yes, a platter and perhaps include some smoked salmon too, meats, olives,
Lidl do a nice anti-pasti selection of stuffed mushrooms, peppers (hot and not), there is some cheese but not much. Nice bread, olive oil to dip it in?
Very easy and looks nice too.

Mmm, beef Wellington, can I come, I'll wash up!

Hope your little DGS will be fine

I have recently done both of the above recently platter and maze and went down amazing well, of course n equally easy solution is pate, toast and a lovely red onion chutney

Today I made cubed melon and mango for a starter, but perhaps that's more for summer.

Italian meats, olives, antipasti out of jars and sliced mozzarella all set out on a platter and garnished with some rocket salad always looks impressive. And even better requires very little effort, that's my sort of entertaining!

I was going to suggest dips with vegetable batons and bread too. We all seem to be thinking along the same lines!

I'd go with the above too in the circumstances.. yummy and easy to prepare!

Similar would be a Mezze table with stuffed vine leaves/ hoummous/tzatziki/ falafel/ salad bits and flatbreads... all available ready made.

Two great ideas ....very similar. Also have you any dipping oils or vinegars? I've some lovely infused olive oils and unusual balsamics such as date, blueberry and raspberry.

I put them in tiny dishes and put out chunks of artisan bread and add those to the kind of starters above.

I would suggest something similar: platter of Parma ham, baby tomatoes, some green stuff including basil leaves, and mozzarella. People help themselves.

Buy a pack of mixed cured meats, some olives, baby mozzarella, little tomatoes. Maybe some ciabatta, depending on how hungry you think they'll all be. All in the middle, everyone helps themselves. No preparation at all.