How to plan the perfect party?
Summer is always about good weather and therefore about spending time outdoors, holidays, spending time with family and friends. It is even more typical to organise various gatherings during this period.
Whether you're planning a small garden party or a wedding for hundreds of people, in this post we've gathered some useful tips from our experienced event planners to help you know how to get started?
1. The big decision
It is advisable to start planning by deciding on the most important things, because these are the foundations on which the other elements can be built:
■ What kind of party do you want?
Are you celebrating a special occasion or just looking for a good time and want to organise a party? If it's a special occasion, it's worth organising everything. If you just want to have a spontaneous party, there are some well-established themes to build your event around: e.g. White Party, Retro Party, CandyShop, BBQ garden party...etc.
Once you have a good theme, it is much easier to plan the next steps. 😉
■ What should be the date and time?
The day of the week, the time of day and especially the time of year you have the party will have a big influence on whether you plan a brunch or cocktail party, or whether it's better to have an indoor party or to choose outdoor catering.
■ Who to invite?
Draw up a guest list, as this will determine whether you can fit them in at home or which venue would be suitable for the capacity and nature of the event you have in mind. Once you have this, it's worth a cautious run around to see if the guests on the guest list can attend your party and if the date is suitable for them. If fewer people can attend than you had planned, you may want to reconsider your choice of venue if a smaller one is an option.
2. Hospitality
Once you have the above 3 points, you can start to list who else you need to involve in the different stages of the organisation:
■ Food and drink - compiling a menu
Location
Depending on the nature of the event, you may even be able to skip this point if you are hosting the party at home. 🙂
If the situation is more complicated than that, terms such as seating capacity, standing capacity, seating capacity, layout, audio-visual services, catering, permits, insurance...
To make the process easier, we suggest some of the help available on our website:
■ Venues
On this subpage we list the venues we offer, so you can quickly browse and narrow down the locations to those that are suitable for the number of guests and the nature of the event.We recommend that you choose a venue that is easily accessible for your guests (if not all, then most), that is well suited to the number of people invited and that fits the theme of the event.
Food and drink
Some venues may need to order in-house catering, but most venues are flexible about this and allow imported food and drinks. We're at the forefront of catering, as we're #lefew ;), so we're happy to help with that too!
We also have menus that are flexible to suit any type of event, cuisine and budget, and can usually meet most requirements.
Complete Party Menus
We offer a wide range of menus for our customers.
In all cases, we recommend seasonal menus, which include the latest creations from our Chef. In addition, our classic menus are of course available all year round.
Our menu suggestions include comments on food intolerances and we can also prepare vegetarian/vegan or gluten-free, dairy-free or nut-free menus!
Drinks:
We suggest drinks that match and harmonise with the event and the dishes chosen. When choosing drinks, it may also be important to ensure that they are chilled and stored on site and, if necessary, that a bar or serving counter is set up.
If you would like to use our catering services during your event, we can also provide a wide range of bar service, including beer, wine, cocktails and non-alcoholic drinks on request. We can also provide themed bars to colour your event: e.g. Wine Bar, Lemonade Bar...etc.
We can set up a fully staffed bar for your event or simply serve your guests.
3. Final touches
In most cases, whether it's an elegant wedding for hundreds of people or a small garden party for friends, the decoration of the venue, the colours, the floral decorations, the backgrounds, the signage, the on-site photography/videography, or the thank-you gifts are all tasks to be solved during the planning.
You can make many of the items on this list yourself if you want to save money.
If you prefer to leave it to the professionals, we also offer the following services to our clients:
- Flower decoration - table decoration, complete floral decoration of the venue
- Balloon decoration - 1-1 flashy balloon ornament or balloon decoration of the whole venue
- Table layout - circular, U-shaped, comb, table, according to the site and the nature of the event
- Hosted by - elbows and catering service
- Buffet - catering service
- Event management - DJ, performing artists, music
- Providing professional photographer and videographer - to record the event
- Print and web materials - preparing the printing materials related to the event (e.g. invitations, menu cards, programme, etc.), as well as the online invitation and the event website
We hope that this summary of a few key points will help you plan your event.
Events, like the organisation itself, should be as stress-free as possible. If there's anything we can do to support your event, from catering to full organisation, please contact us.
