If your family is spread out across the nation or even the world, it’s naturally much more difficult to meet up, so the occasional family reunion is an absolute must. Family reunions are the perfect chance to reconnect with old family members and friends, get an update on everyone’s lives, and enjoy that precious sense of community together. However, there’s a lot that goes into planning a good family reunion, and even more involved in planning a great one, so it helps to go into things knowing what needs to be done. To help you out, we’ve put together a few of the best tips for planning a memorable family reunion, so feel free to take a look!
Start as Early as Possible
Depending on how far spread out your family is, we recommend starting planning anywhere between 6-12 months in advance. While having as much as an entire year may seem excessive, keep in mind that you not only have to find a date and time for which almost every family member’s schedule lines up, but you also have to plan a venue, food, activities, and the like. If you don’t allow yourself enough time to prepare all the moving parts that go into a family reunion, the deadline will sneak up on you much faster than expected, so always give yourself more time than you think you’ll need.
Make it a Group Effort
Needless to say, there’s a lot that goes into planning a great family reunion, and it’s almost certainly more than one person reasonably can or should handle on their own. Instead, reach out to other family members to split up the work evenly. Delegate tasks to different family members, and have them each keep track of their progress so that you can get a better image of what still needs to be done.
In addition, try to establish a medium of communication for all the planners to share like a group chat, communal spreadsheet, or email thread. Have everyone post updates regularly so that everyone can stay informed and organized, and you’ll have a reunion ready to go in no time!
Keep Cost in Mind
When planning a family reunion, it’s best to set a budget before you start making any purchases. Though there are a few non-negotiable, essential expenses, there are plenty of optional costs as well, and if you don’t have a budget to manage those optional costs, they’ll snowball before you even realize it. Research the price points for the essentials, and using that as a foundation for your budget, decide on how many extras you and your family can afford. From there, you can continue planning without having to worry about whether or not you can afford it.
Be Clear and Concise
When communicating with your family about details and specifics regarding the reunion, there’s nothing more important than communicating everything as clearly as possible. Be sure that there’s no confusion regarding meeting dates, deadlines for the planning process, and any other important details. Doing so will save you and your relatives a huge amount of time and frustration, and streamline the planning process as a whole.
Allow Some Extra Time
While having a plan is an essential part of a great family reunion, it’s also important to prepare for unexpected hold-ups and delays. Booking out the schedule completely with activities and events may seem like a great way to get the most out of your reunion at first, but in reality, it’ll just cause more stress as you scramble to do everything that’s on the itinerary.
When putting together the schedule for the day of the reunion, be sure to space out all of your activities, meals, and events, giving you a bit of extra padding in case something runs longer than expected. Even if you end up not needing the extra time, free, unscheduled time is great for catching up with people and just enjoying each other’s company, so there’s no real downside either way.
Put Together a Menu
If your family reunion is going to be an all-day event, you and your guests will need something to eat, so make sure you have a menu put together. Plan out 2-3 meals, as well as snacks and desserts if desired, making sure to take everyone’s tastes and unique dietary needs into account when doing so. For example, if there are a lot of children in your family, they may want something different than what most of the adults are having, so preparing something simple like nuggets or corn dogs that’s easy for them to enjoy will help them enjoy the experience as well.
Plan for Everything
As mentioned before, you can’t technically plan for every possible outcome, but you can (and should) be prepared for things to go differently than planned. One of the most important things to have a contingency plan for is the weather. There’s not much you can do to change nasty weather once it’s started, and if you don’t have a plan to deal with it, it’ll put a damper on your gathering pretty quickly. As such, we recommend setting up an outdoor pole tent with sidewalls where you and your relatives can take shelter if it starts raining or the sun gets too intense.
Inside the tent, you can more or less set up a miniature version of the outdoor reunion. Set up some tables and chairs, keep some snacks around in case anyone starts feeling hungry, and have a few activities available so people can keep themselves occupied while waiting for the weather to clear up. With the proper tent setup, you’ll be able to keep your family reunion going strong come rain or shine, ensuring it’s a great experience for everyone!
If you’re looking for more advice on how to plan, host, and set up an outdoor event, as well as high-quality products to get things done, we’ve got you covered! Feel free to visit our site at Party Tents Direct today!
No comments yet