Planning a fall season reunion party can be a daunting task. We have put together a guideline to help you create the best reunion party that everyone will love — and you can start preparing early so it’s easy for you.
Read ahead!
What You Will Need to plan a Fall Season Family Reunion Party
- Calendar
- Planner
- Invitation cards/email
- Name tag
- Tee shirt (not compulsory)
- Smartphone
How to Plan the Party
1. Create a committee
Planning a fall season family reunion party can be an intimidating duty. Especially if you haven’t done it before. Working alone will be your first mistake. Chances are that you have a really large family. To make things go smoothly, you need to create a team and work with your team to create a successful party.
To do this, each family will have a representative. The voice of the representative is the voice of the family represented. You work with the representatives and you head the team. As the head, you’ll oversee the event, handle communication between your team, play the peacemaking role in case of misunderstanding, and coordinate volunteers.
You all don’t have to gather in a place to make things happen, even if you are all scattered around the globe. Thanks to technology, you can connect with the help of technology. You can use Zoom, Skype, Google hangout, FaceTime, or other apps that can help you all connect.
2. Select a date
If your family has a standby date every year, you can skip this session. If not, read keenly. The first decision you need to make with your committee is the duration of the reunion party. Should it be during the weekend, a week long, or one day?
These are questions your team should deliberate on. After making a decision on the duration, you need to pick a date. The entire committee, after consulting their respective families, should all deliberate on their free time. Each representative should bring the free dates of the family. You collapse dates that are the same. And pick the most chosen date.
Although some families will have to adjust to their free day, you should never agree on a day that a member of a family is having a really significant occasion.
3. Talk about budget
Money-related topics are naturally uncomfortable conversations in a family. Setting a budget won’t be much of a hassle if your family once had a reunion party not so long ago. You can still use the old budget to create a basis for this one.
If not, you have to create your data. Even if you have your laid out financial plan, raising funds might be daunting, or else you have a really rich relative that can take a large chunk of the financial responsibility. If not, you should fix a budget meeting with all the family representatives to draw out a reasonable budget.
In your budget meeting, you should factor in the fact that rates are cheaper during the fall seasons.
4. Choose a location
Don’t expect one family to host the entire multi-generation flock of other family members. You might be expecting too much with that. The solution is to arrange a destination reunion. Now the topic of discussion is location. Let’s help you with some tips to choose the possible best destination.
Let each family generate their opinion of the best possible locations
Designate a representative to create a google sheet with all suggestions. And each family should tick just a choice. The date of submission of the date should be made known.
You can assign a representative to count the vote and release the result.
5. Send out cards
Now that the date, budget, and location are all set. You have all you need to compose your invitation letter. Why not go ahead? You can send an email to each family. For the old folks, you can mail it. Do this as soon as possible to get them aware of the informatio early enough. With this, the respective families can start getting ready in tune with the details in the letter.
6. Volunteers
Now that the major elements of planning have been ironed out. Let’s have all hands on deck. As we said earlier. It’s not a one-man’s job. Other families can also help out to make this a success. Let’s show you how to request volunteers without being a pain in the side.
- Let the family representatives first meet to deliberate on tasks that need a volunteer.
- Send out emails, asking for volunteers.
- After you’ve gotten volunteers, assign tasks to them with a date to deliver. Do this politely.
- Appoint one or two representatives to ensure they carry the tasks out before the deadline.
You need families to volunteer to take on some tasks. Let’s list out some possible tasks begging for volunteers.
- Finance director: in charge of expense recording and account checking. Also, make sure the budget isn’t overshot.
- Lodging liaison: In charge of the accommodation.
- Food director: works with the caterer or handles potluck.
- Correspondence officer: Like a Public Relations Officer, in charge of information, and communicating with family members.
- Entertainment director: In charge of activity organization for all age groups.
- Reservations officer: Tracks who’s coming, and who’s not
- And a lot more tasks that you feel should be delegated to someone. Everyone should be involved.
7. Ask for feedback
Meet with your representatives to make sure all tasks delegated to representatives and volunteers are progressing well and delivered on time. You wouldn’t want to be disappointed on that day.
8. Activities
The idea is not just to keep things organized, but fun. You need to set up activities for various age groups as you will be having a vast range of ages at the party. Keep the old busy, and the young active. The kids should be happy.
9. Music
Set the mood of the party with a loveable vibe. Music is the best to do the job. Music has its way of getting people energized and ready to have fun. While waiting for some activities to kick off, or waiting for other members to arrive. Music will set the mood of the family and give them a feeling of happiness.
Although using recorded audio works. You can decide to spice up the party by hiring a live band. Life band will save you the stress of researching and downloading the best music to create the warm mood you seek. A live band will relieve you of that extra burden.
Mariachi music is a good pick for a family reunion party. Let the experts be in charge of the music. At Mariachi Alegre De Tucson, we have been playing mariachi music for various family reunion parties. And we know just the best way to set up the mood of everyone with the right choice of music to play and playing it perfectly well. Reach out to us!
