When to Book Your Vendors

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This is the fifth post in a year-long series chronicling the process from engagement to wedding. We will share tips, ideas, and real-world experiences that may help you through your own planning process.

Knowing when to book your vendors is crucial to not only making sure your event goes as planned, but also for keeping your stress levels low and keeping a steady flow during your planning stages.

There are many, many guides available on the Internet. Below are my suggestions and best tips for a timeline of when to contact vendors and when to confirm. 

Since a typical wedding takes about a year to plan, for our purposes here, we’re assuming your wedding is on a twelve-month timeframe. Adjust as necessary to suit your needs.

12 Months Out

Think about:
  • Wedding location and style – Before starting your venue search, it helps to have an idea of what location and style would suit you. If you would prefer a rustic barn wedding, then the middle of a city is unlikely to meet your needs. Spend some time researching what styles and locations you like and narrow down your preferences.
  • Wedding date – Select your preferred date and two backup dates. When you talk with each venue (which should be your first vendor contact), see if they are available on your dates.
  • Wedding planner – Will you have a planner or a day-of coordinator? If so, narrow down your choices and plan to conduct interviews. If not, make sure you know who will handle these essential duties for you.
Contact and confirm:
  • Venue – Once you select a few potential venues based on your wedding location and style, you can begin to schedule tours. In the era of coronavirus, or if you are travelling to your wedding destination, in-person tours may not be possible. If you can’t visit in person, see if a virtual or livestream tour is an option. Once you do decide on the venue of your dreams, confirm your date and put down the deposit. Keep in mind that popular venues are booked a year or more in advance, so if you are tied to a specific date for your wedding, you may want to lock this in early.
  • Caterer – Your venue may have a preferred caterer they work with. If so, you may need to book the caterer at the same time as the venue. Be prepared in case you need to put down two deposits instead of one.
  • Planner/Coordinator – If you are hiring a coordinator, you want to make sure they are available for your wedding date. If you’re hiring a planner to take you through the entire process, you want to start early.

10 Months Out

Think about:
  • Honeymoon – Start thinking about where you would like to go for your honeymoon and what you would need to accomplish before then. If you are planning international travel, do you need to update your passport or get any immunizations? Are you going to hire a travel agent to book anything for you? In the era of coronavirus, travel may be restricted, so keep this in mind when planning. You may even want to hold off on booking the honeymoon until a more stable time. Consider a staycation or a mini-moon in your home state until you can travel more widely.
  • Music – Start thinking about what you would like for your reception and/or ceremony music. Do you prefer a live band or is a DJ more your style?
  • Officiant – Who would you want to actually marry you? If you like the idea of having a family member or close friend become ordained to do this, check the laws in your area to ensure this is a legal and viable option, then float the idea with your desired person.  
Contact and confirm:
  • Photographer/Videographer – This is one of the most important decisions. You want to make sure you have memories from your special day! Confirm with your photographer that they are available for your wedding date and get quotes from two or three to consider all your options. If you also want a videographer, this is often a separate vendor. You will likely need to have your photographer and/or videographer confirmed with deposits by this date in order to reserve their services for your event.
  • Florist – Confirm your florist. You will need to have some idea of what flowers you’d like, how many you will need, and if you will ask the same vendor to make your bouquets or centerpieces. You could also buy flowers in bulk and DIY the bouquets, but keep in mind that this option comes with more work and potential stress.
  • Caterer – If your venue does not have a in-house caterer, you are free to choose your catering company, usually from their preferred vendor list. If so, you can plan to do this about ten months out. Follow the same process of checking for your wedding date and narrowing down available caterers from there.  Review their menu selections to narrow your choices down to one or two possibilities before you schedule your tasting(s), because there is usually a fee for this service, especially if you end up booking somewhere else.   

8 Months Out

Think about:
  • Baker/Cake –Research bakers in your area and think about what you would like for your wedding cake. Do you want a traditional tiered or sheet cake, or something more modern, such as a cupcake tree? Having a cake for cutting and offering other desserts is popular now.  Narrow down your preferences and have two or three bakeries in mind that you could visit. Schedule a tasting, typically six months before your wedding. Remember to ask your bakery when scheduling if there is an additional fee for tastings.
  • Caterer – Select the menu choices for your tasting(s) and schedule your tasting approximately six months before your wedding. NOTE: Once you book your caterer, ask if all or part of your tasting fee can be applied to the contract price.
  • Hair and makeup – Start thinking about what you would like for your hair and makeup for the big day and whether you will get ready at the venue or an off-site location. Will you do your makeup yourself but hire a hair stylist? Will you have the same stylist available for the bride as well as bridesmaids, or do you need a team of stylists for a large wedding party?
Contact and confirm:
  • Music – Confirm your reception and ceremony music. This may be two different vendors; for example, if you want live music for the ceremony but a DJ for the reception, you need to talk with two different companies. Have them both confirmed and deposit(s) placed as needed around this time.
  • Officiant – Once you’ve decided on who you would like to have as your officiant, make sure to confirm the details with them.
  • Stationer/Calligrapher – If you plan to DIY your stationary, you can skip this step. If you plan to have a vendor create all or some of your stationary (save the dates, invitations, table cards, programs, etc.), then you will need to contact them and confirm their services about eight months away from the wedding. If you are hiring a calligrapher or want your stationary to be handwritten, check with the vendor’s timetable and follow their guidelines for how far out they need to book to fulfill your order.

Six Months Out

Contact and confirm:
  • Cake and Caterer – Have your tastings. Who wouldn’t love this step?
  • Transportation – Do you plan to hire a limo, bus, or other transportation for your wedding party on the big day? Have an idea of how many people need transportation and confirm with a company about six months out.
  • Makeup and/or Hair – If you plan to have a makeup artist and/or hair stylist for the bride and the bridal party, you need to have them confirmed by six months out. For a vendor who is really popular, you may need to book them further out. You will need to set up a trial with your artist or stylist about two or three months away before the wedding.

By the time you reach the six-month point, you should have all of your vendors confirmed.

NOTE:  I strongly suggest having a written agreement with vendors, especially with the current health crisis.  Most vendors will have a contract.  Remember, no agreement is binding until it is written down, signed, and money changes hands.  If you do accept a more informal agreement for services, I suggest corresponding by email with the vendor and keeping the email chain for documentation. 

Keep Kids Entertained At Your Event

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Formal events and children generally have a passing familiarity with each other. Many hosts will forgo including children at the event to avoid the chance of interruptions or meltdowns. But there’s no real reason why children couldn’t be included if you want them to be there, and options abound for how to keep the littlest attendees entertained and happy while the adults enjoy the event.

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Kids Only Areas

Arrange for a Kids Only area, if there’s space at your event location. This can be outdoors if the weather is cooperating, but make sure you have a backup plan.  Hire a sitter or two to keep the children engaged and involved in safe activities, minimize separation anxiety, and free up the adults so they can enjoy the party.  Depending on the ages and number of children, you may need more than one sitter.  If all the kids are over age three, typically one adult for 8-10 children works well.  For children under age two, the adult-to-child ratio is 1:3.  If space is available, but hiring a childcare provider is not an option, make sure you assign volunteers to take turns staying with the kids.

Art Tables

Art tables, located off to the side in the event space or in a separate room, are a fabulous idea to keep the little ones occupied. Make sure that the table is stocked with enough paper, coloring books, and art supplies for kids of all ages to enjoy.  PRO TIP:  If the children will be in formal clothes, avoid paint completely and stick to washable markers.  The kids can draw, color, and create whatever they want at the table. Hiring an artist or other adult to run the table frees the host and the other guests from managing the kids and allows them to enjoy the event. If you choose to have an unsupervised art table, it should be within sight of the adult guests.

Hire an Entertainer

If your venue has a separate area for the kids, you can hire an entertainment group which specifically caters to children at events to handle all the work for you. Some may do magic acts while others may include more “carnival” type entertainment, such as balloon animals, face painting, and clowns. Still others might have actors dress up as specific characters, such as superheroes, and come in character to play with the kids.  Some of these entertainers can be enjoyed by all ages and could be included as part of the main event if it is appropriate to the event program.

Off-Site Childcare

Consider securing a room in another location convenient to the event venue and hiring a babysitter(s) – see childcare provider to child ratios above. Finding a good babysitter can be a challenge, though, especially if you don’t have kids yourself, so think about asking for recommendations or going through a known website to find someone you can trust. For a typical wedding, you want to book them for about 5 hours to cover the ceremony and the reception, (more if the ceremony and reception are in different locations).  For other events, such as corporate office parties, book for the full time of the event.

Provide Quiet Toys or Activity Boxes

If your venue doesn’t have room for a separate area for kids, and they need to be where the festivities are taking place, bring some quiet toys or activities to keep the children occupied at their tables. For example, drawing paper and crayons, mini Etch-a-sketch, or fidget toys that don’t make sounds would be great to keep the kids entertained without adding extra noise.

If there is space for a supervised kids only area, feel free to include toys that are louder or which need more space, such as balls, balloons, Play-Doh, bubble wands, and classic outdoor games like cornhole.

Play “I Spy”

One idea I especially love is from a Buzzfeed article about entertaining kids at weddings. You could buy disposable cameras for all the kids and provide a sort of search-and-find game. This has the kids searching for specific items on your list that they have to take a picture of, such as “take a picture of someone laughing.” I love the creativity behind this as you could have the kids search for anything you want, it keeps the kids actively occupied, and it could even add to the wedding couple’s photos after the fact.

How do you keep children entertained at a big event or family function? What has worked for you in the past? Share your experiences with us!

Create a Stellar Retirement Party

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It’s your retirement – let’s celebrate! It’s a great accomplishment to achieve, and it’s an opportunity to celebrate you as well as your years of dedication and hard work.

So what do you need to think about for a retirement party? Here are a few ideas.

Themes

Choosing a theme is an easy way to start the planning process. Your decorations, food choices, and party favors (if you decide to have them) can all be determined by your theme. If you’re jumping into the planning process for a retirement party and don’t know where to start, this should be Step 1. Shutterfly has a great article on how to choose a theme that works for your party and your goals.

If you decide not to have a theme, that’s great as well. You can still keep it simple and easy without becoming overwhelmed. For example, if you’re having the party in the autumn, you could use harvest décor on the invitations and for centerpieces. You could decide to use solid colors that go well together for napkins, tablecloths, and invitations, such as blue and gold, and voila! You have a good portion of your decisions already made.

Speeches

Your boss or direct supervisor will likely have a few words they’d like to say about your years of service. But your coworkers or team members may also have some words they’d like to share. Allow at least one speech and/or toast so that everyone attending has an easy opportunity to thank you by raising a glass in your honor.

You may also want to make a speech of your own. You could make it serious and heartfelt or funny and lighthearted, or some mixture of all the above. It’s also a way for you to publicly thank your colleagues for their support and dedication in the office alongside you. Your retirement celebration is all about you, for certain, but if you’re self-conscious or dislike having the spotlight entirely on you, go ahead and thank your team, your coworkers, your spouse or children, or anyone else you’d like to mention.

Slideshows

Decide if you’d like to have a slideshow. Or, if you’re planning the party for someone else, you could decide to include a slideshow in addition to or in place of a big speech. Use photos from past events the honoree was at, photos or video of their accomplishments or key projects, etc. Of course, you may not have photos of these events, so you may have to get creative. But do avoid a PowerPoint presentation style – you don’t want your guests to feel like they’re attending a business function. Keep it simple, keep it lighthearted, and keep it out of PowerPoint if at all possible!

Invite Friends and Family

It’s a celebration for your family and friends as much as your coworkers. Assuming your party isn’t at the office and restricted to colleagues, it’s perfectly OK to invite friends and family as well as business partners, networking partners, and other business connections to join in your festivities. Make sure that your invitations make this clear, however; if you’re inviting friends and family who may have young children, they’ll need to know if they need to arrange child care in order to attend, or if children are welcome.

Keep in Contact

Just because you’re retiring doesn’t mean you have to stop talking to all your work friends or partners. Make sure your colleagues and associates know how to contact you now that your office email won’t be the main method of contact. You could even create new retirement business cards with your preferred means of communication to hand out at the party, or set on a table for folks to take with them. Retirement may mark the end of an era for you, but it doesn’t mean you have to isolate yourself from the people who have made an impact on you.

4 Tips for a Corporate Holiday Party

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A holiday party for your company is a great way to let employees relax, have fun, and get to know each other better. A party can encourage team bonding as well as let employees from different departments who may not interact on a day to day basis socialize with each other. It’s also a nice way to thank employees for their hard work through the year, and many companies will fold in awards, special thanks, or holiday gifts or bonuses with the holiday party to make it that much more exciting.

Here are a few tips for improving your company holiday party.

Planning is Key

Like any other big event, make sure you plan it! A holiday party sounds easy – just throw together some food, some music, and you’re done, right? Wrong! If you’re providing food, you need to account for any specialty diets. If you’re providing drinks, are you providing alcohol, and if so, is it open bar or cash bar? If you’re providing a special dessert, who’s making it and what kind will it be? In fact, who’s making any of your food?

Location is crucial if you plan to have the party outside of your office. Many locations book months in advance, and December is a popular time for parties in general. Plan to book a location and secure your spot during the summer months if at all possible. If you wait until the autumn to book a venue, be prepared to shop around or be turned down. If you need to wait until closer to December to book your location, it’s a good idea to have a plan B in mind already so you aren’t scrambling at the last minute, or forced to host a larger party in a small space.  

These questions and many more will come up in the process of planning your party, so it’s best to start early. You may want to have an events committee as well to help take on tasks so that no one person is doing everything.

If you’re planning a large party and you don’t have an in-house events coordinator, consider hiring an event planner to help get things organized.

Guest List

Your employees are invited, of course, but who else do you want to invite? What’s the goal of your holiday party?

If your goal is strictly to honor employees, you may want to limit the party just to your employees and maybe their families. If your party is more open to celebrating the business or a general end of the year party, consider inviting business partners, networking associates, colleagues outside the business, or potential clients or partners.

Once you decide, make sure it’s clear on the invitation who can come. Language such as “All employees and their families are invited – children welcome!” would cover all bases for most people. Also make it clear to whom questions and RSVPs should be directed.

Holiday Gift Exchange

A gift exchange for the office sounds like fun – but account for the length of the exchange when you’re picking the game! I know of one case where the office decided to do a White Elephant exchange one year and it took over an hour to get through all the gifts because of the number of people who decided to participate. While it could be fun, it’s maybe not the best use of your party time.

White Elephant is more fun for a smaller group, but it can be used by larger offices. Secret Santa can be fun, although it has been less popular as a choice for office gift exchanges. For this one, you may want to allow departments to do their own Secret Santa so that employees who know each other better will be more likely to choose gifts the person wants.

A Grab Bag could be a practical but fun gift exchange that’s similar to the White Elephant but without the potential for a too-long game. With Grab Bag, everyone who wants to participate brings a wrapped gift, which is put into a large opaque bag. Then the participants pull a gift from the bag on their turn based on how it feels and unwrap it. There’s no stealing in this game, so what you get is what you get.

Keep Diverse Backgrounds in Mind

A holiday party for your company is a fantastic idea. But you don’t want to accidentally alienate any of your employees or make them feel unwelcome. When choosing decorations or a theme, keep the diversity of your employees in mind. My recommendation is to either honor all the backgrounds represented by your employees, or none. For example, it’s likely that your holiday party isn’t going to be on Christmas itself, so rather than having the party be a “Christmas party”, it’s OK to leave it as a “holiday party” or “winter holiday party”. This also allows the party to be a simple celebration of the end of the year and keep it lighthearted and non-specific to any one tradition.

4 Themes for a Family Reunion

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Using a theme can make party planning easier, especially if you’re struggling to come up with a decorating scheme. Family reunions can be a lot of fun for kids and adults alike if it’s planned well and the wide range of ages is taken into account in food choices, activities, and venue. For example, an outdoor reunion in the middle of summer’s heat and humidity might make it difficult for older members of the family to attend and be comfortable, while a completely indoor event might make it harder for children to find play space.

Take a look at four theme ideas for your next family reunion to help you get the ball rolling on your plans.

Simple and Easy

If budget is a concern, or if your family isn’t really interested in something more complicated, then keep it simple and easy. Make it potluck and ask everyone to bring their favorite dish. If your family members are particularly chatty or live very far away, you may not need many activities – they might just want to talk and catch up with each other over some good food. Make sure there are plenty of chairs, tables, and food, and you’re set!

Games

Who doesn’t like to play games? This is a great theme if you have a lot of young children in the family. The kids will be engaged through most of the event, and the adults can chat or play games as they like.

You could ask each family or person to name their favorite game and then provide it at the reunion or ask them to bring it along to share. Make sure there’s adequate table space for tabletop games and card games, and available open space for games like tag or hide and seek. You could also have new games for door prizes.

Children playing table games at a family reunion

Family Tree

A family reunion might seem like it would naturally lend itself to genealogy and family history, and it does – but your guests might need help to get the ball rolling. Making family history or some aspect of your heritage the main focus of the event and then designing things to do around that helps to get things moving.

Provide a large blank book and plenty of pens and ask members of the family to share a favorite memory or family story. This is something you could repeat each year regardless of the theme as well, particularly if you’re trying to collect family history stories, and you could use a new book each year or reuse the old one until it’s full.

If someone in your family is the main genealogist, ask them if they could help you showcase your family tree, either in a printed form that everyone could take home at the end or in a digital format that could be shared at the event.

Family photos are also a great way to introduce the family tree theme. Ask each family to send you a certain number of photos and then display them in a slideshow throughout the event. It gives everyone something to look at and chat about while eating or mingling.

Decades

This could be a really fun theme to work with! Choose a decade, let’s say the 1980s, and highlight that decade at your event. You could play ‘80s music, wear clothes from the decade, play games popular in the ‘80s, and more.

For the more recent decades, you could showcase different family members who were born in that span of years. Maybe they could be the only people to win a door prize, or they could receive a special dessert. Everyone could share a favorite thing they enjoyed about the decade, or what their favorite movie was from that time.

Emphasizing a decade as your theme gives you a host of options to play with!

5 Ideas for Hosting a Launch Party

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A launch party is a fantastic tool to create buzz for a new company, new product, or other celebratory event. Everyone from small businesses, authors, artists, musicians, and large companies can use a launch party to announce themselves to the world and invite people to celebrate in their success. It can also be a great way to make new contacts and network with guests who come to learn more about what you have to offer. Here are 5 ideas to consider when putting together a launch party.

Location

Location, location, location! You hear it all the time in real estate – it’s just as true for hosting a party. You want a venue that will meet your needs and still be cost effective. It doesn’t have to be the most expensive venue in the area to be a great party. Hotel conference rooms are always an option, but you could also consider a restaurant with a private room (which has the benefit of built-in food and drink), a park, a theater, or other such unusual space. Depending on the size of your party, you could ask partner businesses if they have space to rent in their offices or buildings that would be appropriate as well.

Free Food

We all love free things. Offer to feed people and they will come. There are multiple options for providing food for guests, depending on your venue and budget. Here are a couple of ideas:

  • Catering. Having your event catered is perhaps the most stress-free option, but it doesn’t come without cost. Carefully consider your budget and get quotes from local catering companies to explore your options.
  • Food trucks. If your event is outdoors or on a street that allows food trucks, you could consider booking one or two food trucks to be at your event for 2-3 hours.
  • Local restaurants or vendors. Involving local businesses in your event not only supports your local economy, it can create goodwill and networking opportunities among fellow business owners. Get in touch with some local small businesses and ask if they would be willing to sponsor or contribute to your event, and offer to promote their restaurant or company at the event itself and on social media.
  • Friends and family. If you’re holding a truly small event—as in, less than 50 people—then you may be able to make enough food and drink yourself and with the help of family and friends. However, think very carefully before going this route. Consider how much stress this could add to your pre-event organization, and consider how much your loved ones will actually be able to help in the days leading up to your party. If it’s going to create too much havoc, you may want to consider another option.

Giveaways or Door Prizes

Who doesn’t like to win a prize? Especially if it’s something useful, fun, or unique. A popular door prize is Amazon gift cards, or gift cards in general. However, you can also give away free tickets to an event, coupons or discounts for a product or service, centerpieces, or items from partners and sponsors who have volunteered something for the occasion. I encourage you to think creatively with door prizes, as it’s a great opportunity to provide something memorable or fun.

Backdrop

Provide a backdrop or banner for guests to take pictures in front of. It doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. Depending on the size, you can get a relatively inexpensive banner from online print sites like Vistaprint, some of which will provide designs that you can use. Guests can take pictures of themselves with your product, with other guests, etc., and post their photos on social media. Ask guests to tag you in their posts or use a hashtag to help spread the word about your event.

You may even want to hire a professional photographer for an hour or two to take photos so you have quality images to share on your company’s website or social media. Combined with your guests’ photos, you’ll have a comprehensive view of your event that you can share.

Be You

The most important tip: Be you. Be genuine. People are there to learn more about you and celebrate you. Host an event that showcases your business, your product, or your brand, and let people get to know you in a fun, low-key way. It’s tempting to try to go over the top with a fancy party, expensive catering or location, or swanky prizes. But if that’s not your brand, it’s likely going to fall flat.