Party Planning 101 - Part 1

You just looked at your calendar and you just did a double take remembering you only have two months to plan a party for [insert special occasion here]. Where to start?! What to do?! Well, I’m here to help you have a spectacular party that your guests will actually enjoy! As long as you have your date set, it’s time to start planning.

First, plan a guest list. It’s important to know if you’re going to have a big party or a small party. A kid’s party, an adult party, a ladies only party, any kind of party must start with a guest list. I’ll use my most recent large event as an example for this 101 tutorial. Both my kids had birthdays this month. My son turned 1 and my daughter turned 5. We decided to just do a double birthday party here at home about 6 months before the actual event. I started making a list of family first, then added my daughter’s pre-school friends, then other family and friends. I believe we had a guest list with a total of about 100 people. It sounds like a lot, but you have to also realize that even though you invite 100 people, only about on half to two thirds actually show up, especially taking into account any out of town friends and family. This holds true for all events, birthday parties, weddings, showers, BBQ’s, whatever the event or occasion. To be on the safe side with how many people you can host, you can double your idea number, or at least add an extra handful of invites.

The second step is to decide on a theme or at least a color scheme. For the kiddos’ birthday party, we decided to do super heroes for baby boy and lollipops for darling girl. Aside from the theme, we decided that pink and purple would represent the girl theme and purple and green would represent the boy side. Your theme could be anything you can imagine. My 30^th birthday theme was southwestern. My husband’s 30^th birthday was an Asian theme. My son’s baby shower was a football/Dallas Cowboys theme. You can also decide the theme by the type of food you’re thinking about serving. An outdoor BBQ can simply be a BBQ theme, desserts can be a bakery theme, wine tasting can be a country side theme. The possibilities are endless.

Time to budget! Decide on a realistic budget for your party. Are you buying decorations? Food? Rentals? Can you make some decorations by hand in order to have a bigger food budget? This is also where your guest list comes in handy. Inviting 100 guests means I had to plan on feeding 50 people, give or take a few. So, do you feed them a meal? Just have appetizers? It really depends on your budget. Months before the party, we tried out Little Caesar’s $5 pizzas. They tasted good and the price fit my food budget. This is also where time comes in handy. If you plan in advance, it may be easier to spend $500 on a party, whereas if you have a few weeks to plan, $500 may be steep. Also, consider asking for help. Are you throwing a baby shower for a coworker? Maybe ask a few other coworkers to go in on the party with you and split the budget. Do you have no budget for food? Then a pot luck type party may be ideal. This is also a great time to start shopping around. Go to your local party supply store like Party City and see what they have. Also, sign up to a store’s email list to possibly get coupons or the low down on sales. Dollar stores are great too, but beware of quality. Those cute luau paper plates may only cost $1 for 20, but if they don’t hold up to a piece of cake, that’s a wasted dollar. Also, consider places that have party packages like a pizza place for a kid’s party. For a set price, you can have everything set up, have all your food and party favors and have it cleaned up by someone else.

Iron out some details next. This may be a good time to start on invitations. You should already have your date set since you looked at your calendar, right? Where are you going to have your party? At home? At another venue? What time of year is it and what’s the weather going to be like? My September babies are usually stuck with hot weather, so an evening or morning party fits best unless we decide on another venue like a pizza place that is temperature controlled. If you are planning for a July birthday party, you don’t want your guests to melt in the afternoon heat and what if your living room is too small to contain all your guests. So, date, time and place should be decided now.Also, how long is the event? Is an hour or two sufficient for entertaining or do you want an all evening or afternoon affair? You can also buy or make invitations now. Making your own can be cheap, but cost lots of time. Buying invitations can be expensive, but save on time. Consider also using social sites like Facebook or evite.com. Be sure to add all the important details to your invite, no matter what type you decide on. A map may be handy for guests to get to the right place as is a phone number for RSVP. If you’re throwing a gift giving occasion, a few gift ideas can be helpful to guests.

Now that you have the basics for starting you party planning, I’ll leave you to go and get it done. Meet me back here next week for what to do next. And maybe bring some questions for me to answer.