Organising a party – the ultimate guide!

Organising a party can sometimes feel a little daunting, especially when hiring a party planner is out of the question. Fear not, this handy guide will help you plan an amazing event that is suited to your style, theme and budget!

Why are you throwing a party?

Are you celebrating a birthday, a wedding, christening or perhaps moving into a new house? Is it just because you love an excuse to bring people together? Is it because you want to dance to your favourite tunes?

Being clear on your “why” can help you with some of the other decisions you need to make (read on to learn about those).

If someone else is the guest of honour at your party, it is a good idea to consider their preferences and style too when making decisions, to ensure they have just as great a time as you on the day!

What vibe are you going for?

Do you want to host a small casual gathering, or a large family gathering complete with children and dogs? Or are you looking to have an intimate dinner party, or perhaps a huge black-tie ball? Defining the style of event upfront will help you decide everything else.

What is your budget?

For some parties the sky is the limit, while others need to be thrown on a shoestring. Work out what you are comfortable with spending and stick to it. There is no point having an epic evening and impressing everyone you know if you won’t be able to afford your groceries for the next month. Even if your budget is small, you can have a special event, you will just need to make decisions to prioritise what you spend your budget on.

The invite list

Now that you know the purpose of the party, the vibe you are going for and your budget, you can use this information to determine your guest list. Your choices above may dictate that you are limited to a small number of close friends, or conversely whether you have room for everyone you know and all their friends too! It will help you to decide whether you want to mix friend groups (for example inviting invite your work), whether children are welcome, etc.

If your numbers are tight, you may want to think about a reserve list of people you would love to invite but can’t quite fit in, as if anyone RSVPs with a no you can add them.

How to invite your guests

If you are having a casual party, sending a WhatsApp message, Facebook event, text or email as an invite may suffice, but for a more formal event (that you want people to send an RSVP for) you will want to issue a more formal invitation. These can still be digital (there are lots of online design services that can be accessed cheaply – check out sites like Canva if you have some design skills or Upwork if you would rather hire someone to help you out) or you could go all out and send printed invitations.

Make sure the invitations contain the party start and end time, address, and some information on dress code. If you want everyone to wear cocktail attire (or come dressed a superhero), you need to let them know!

Picking a date

Selecting a suitable date for a party is not always an easy task, it will always be unsuitable for someone. If there are key people whose attendance is really important to you, it is a good idea to check the dates with those people first, to make sure they can definitely attend. Be aware of public holiday and school holiday dates – these may make your chosen date more or less attractive, depending on your invite list.

The more notice you can give people, the more likely they will be able to attend. For a wedding, ideally you will give up to a year’s notice! For an important, but slightly lessor occasion, consider giving 2 months to give people time to organise their plans and RSVP to you, leaving you with plenty of time to plan. Of course, for less formal parties you could give from a month to just a week’s notice!

The perfect Venue

Your venue will be guided by the size and type of party you are having. Formal parties are sometimes done at restaurants and hotels, but really special events can also be held at your house…fairy lights, marquees and outside bar and catering staff can turn your own back yard into a fairy tale venue. Other options include local halls, private rooms in pubs and special event venues. Your choice of venue will have huge impact on your budget (and will have knock on implications on what you can do for food, drink and entertainment), so choose carefully.

Although by no means exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination, here are a few venue sourcing links:

Timing on the day

It is always helpful to share a specific start time for your event, and an indication of the end time, so your guests can make plans (arrange babysitters, order taxis etc). If the venue has a specific finish time, be sure to state that. If, however, the venue has a late night licence or you are hosting privately, you could simply say “until late”. If you are hosting at your house, don’t forget to be considerate to your neighbours though!

The type of party will guide what type of timing will work best:

  • Children’s birthday parties often start late morning and go until early afternoon, allowing smaller children to be home in time for a nap. Usually, the party would incorporate some lunch after play and activities.
  • A family BBQ might start at around lunch time, or mid afternoon if you wanted it to run into the evening.
  • A cocktail party could start early evening (if providing food) or late evening.
  • A house party would usually start late evening.

Theme

Having a theme is not essential of course, however it really helps you to tie everything together. To choose your theme it can help to reflect on (you guessed it) why you are holding the party and the vibe you are going for. If you do choose a theme make sure you share it with your guests.

Themes could be a colour, a dress code (black-tie, cocktail, yachting). It could be an era (70’s, 80’s, 90’s etc) or location related (beach vibes, rustic country charm, fairground fun). Once selected any decorations you chose (and your outfit) can be matched to complement theme.

Remember, a theme doesn’t have to mean fancy dress. Although that is a lot of fun too!

Food & CATERING

Depending on the scale of your party and party type you could have anything from asking everyone to bring a plate (useful if you are on a very tight budget), to a formal sit down multi-course meal served by formally dressed waiters. You could make canapes and snacks yourself or bring in a cater to create and serve these for you. Your venue choice may dictate your choices here – some venues are happy for you to bring your own food in or your own caterers, while others will have their own inhouse team and require a minimum spend.

Having caterers prepare food at your own house is a fun and cost-effective way to host a really special party at a reasonable price. They will work with you to prepare a menu that suits your party style, your tastes and your budget. This option may require you to have a certain amount of kitchen space for them to use and may require refrigeration hire if you don’t have adequate space to keep the food at safe temperatures.

If it is a birthday party, don’t forget the cake!

Drinks

For parties on a budget, drinks could be as simple as “bring your own” and have large ice buckets or coolers available for your guests to store them. Consider providing them with cups and straws (paper of course!).

For a special event, you could bring in a mobile bar (converted horse trailer anyone?!) and offer your guests complimentary drinks or a cash bar. You could “dry hire” the bar, which includes the bar being set up and staffed for a set period of time, serving drinks that you provide. This can be a cost friendly way of being able to offer a wide range of drink options with limited hassle. Or you could ask the bar provider to provide the drinks using their contacts and suppliers. Alternatively, you could hire catering staff to serve drinks like sparkling wine from trays initially, and then have them walk around filling glasses.

In terms of how you serve the drinks, you could either go disposable (and recyclable please – paper cups are where it is at!) or if the party is a more elegant affair you’ll want to hire glassware. Hiring glasses is pretty straightforward, you select your glass styles and quantities and they will deliver in crates. Typically you can return the glasses dirty which makes things super easy – you just need to hire enough glasses to factor in people leaving their drinks somewhere and getting a fresh glass. We help our clients calculate how many glasses they need, and arrange the hire for them at no mark up.

Entertainment

As a minimum a party needs some music, and easy way to provide this is via streaming services like Spotify. You can make a playlist of your favourite songs in advance, so that you don’t have to worry about what is playing on the night. You might have a more chilled playlist for the start of the party and a higher energy playlist for dancing later! Don’t forget to get the premium subscription though which means no adverts.

If you want to step things up, you could have a DJ, a singer (or a band) play, or indeed an instrumental act. Maybe you know someone who could perform for the evening?

Other entertainment offered could be as simple as some garden games (skittles, Connect 4, giant Jenga), party props (hats, glow sticks, silly signs) or something as fancy as a photo booth or a magician!

Other things to think about

Small details can make a big difference to the smooth running of your party, whether it is at your house or an external venue. Where will people put their coats? Who will get them their first drink? Who is in charge of cooking the food? If there is going to be a speech (or singing of Happy Birthday, who is in charge of that? Take the time to think through the evening from start to finish and agree a plan / owner for each item.

And there you have it – whether your party is large or small, casual or super fancy, you now know the key things to think about. There is of course just one last thing – make sure you have fun on the day!!

+ There are no comments

Add yours