What the hey? This blog may cover a variety of things … but planning a party? I used a lot of technology to make the party planning almost effortless. Anything with technology qualifies, right?
**Sign up for a reminder service**: When I planned a big event, I lucked out and found a Web site that sends e-mails on milestone dates (one year before the event, nine months before the event, six months, and so on) that explained what to do in that timeframe.
**Invitations**: Most events come with an invitation in two parts: One for the service (like the wedding ceremony) and one for the party. Try to put both parts on one invitation (unless you’re inviting a lot of people to one event and not the other). That way, you don’t run into a situation where someone grabs only one part of the invitation and not the other and gets stuck not having the address to the other event.
**Manage guests with a spreadsheet**: One of the biggest problems is figuring out how many will come as vendors generally need this number to prepare. I haven’t found a formula that works (i.e. expect half to attend, expect 60% to attend). In this spreadsheet, I created columns for:
- Number of invitations: This column typically has all 1’s).
- Number invited: One invitation might cover a family of five.
- Number of adults.
- Number of children: Especially for occasions where children have their own food. stations — if not, you may not need this unless you need to account for babysitting.
- Out of town: This can help with determining how many will attend as out-of-towners are less likely to attend than in-towners. It also helps you track how many treat baskets you might need should you decide to do one. Treat baskets contain a welcome letter, drinks, food, flyer with weekend agenda, etc.