Preparation Tips for your Party Planning
The best way to have a great party is to prepare well for it. By preparation I mean a lot of things like the following:
- Getting all food and drink from the shops and preparing the food and drink.
- Arranging who is invited to the party.
- Arranging the party’s starting time.
- Making sure who is coming and who is not coming out of the invited list.
- Making sure there is enough food to cater for all who is coming.
The above is exactly what it takes to have a good party. You also need to decide whether this is a formal or informal party and the types of foods that will be on offer as well as inform your guests of what’s on offer too.
Getting Started with your Party Preparation
Firstly you need to set a date when the party will take place and also a time. Make this a time and date when you wont be busy and you have the time to host a party. Always ask your parents in advance, they may be busy on the days you want to have your party or may not want you to have a party at all. Choose a good time, say 5pm and an end time of 9pm. This will give you time to eat and drink and talk with your guests and for you all to listen to music, dance and do whatever else you would like to do. Try not to have a party from say 5pm until 12pm as your guests may become bored and ultimately make your party suck for them.
Party Food Ideas!
To make a start get yourself writing down what is to be eaten and drank at the party. Which foods do you think others will like and even ask them what they would like to eat at the party too. If it’s an informal party then mini sausage rolls and fizzy pop would be a possibility, if it is a formal party things like pizza and chilled drinks may be suitable. Choosing food and drink that everyone will like is really important to make the party a success.
When choosing drinks choose those that others will like for example common drinks like Coca Cola, Lemonade and Dr.Pepper. If you are buying alcohol legally and your guests can legally drink it ask them what they like the most. Just remember not everyone likes Orangeade and White Cider.
Don’t rush to the shops just yet, do this after you have planned a little further.
Invitations and your Guests
Write down on paper all who you are inviting to your party, you could do this on paper or using Microsoft Excel within a spreadsheet if you have it. Basically you need to write down all who you would like to come, their phone numbers and add some extra space for you to fill in if theyre coming or not. Some may not know if theyre coming to your party but you should contact them later towards the partys date to ask them again.
Inviting your guests on time and well in advance of the party's date is very important and you need to get it right. If you wished to, you could ask your guests whilst on the phone what foods they would like or drinks and then at the end see what was the most common foods and drinks everyone said they liked.
Buying the Party Food
Now you should have a good idea of who is coming, who isnt coming and who might be coming, you need to cater for those who are coming definitely with a little extra for those who might be coming.
You should buy the food a couple of days before the party's starting date, you need to do this in advance but not far too much in advance as the food may go off.
Choose and buy the correct amount of foods, if you have 20 guests then buy enough food for 23 guests so there is enough for those who said maybe. Buy the food about two days in advance of the party. If you want to save yourself money buy cheaper brands than the more expensive ones, things like Smart Price will save you that extra cash.
Personally I think that around £50 could cater for around 20 people including food and drink, possibly even less than that. Dont overspend and buy too much food and drink than you need, otherwise you may end up with the food going off and out of date after the party has ended and would be wasteful.
The Party Day!
Today is the day of your party, you need to get things started like cooking and preparing all of the food for your guests and presenting it to them.
Firstly, if you have foods that need cooking and or slicing, always be under an adults supervision or ask them to help you prepare the food.
If your party is starting at 5pm, begin cooking at around 12pm, this will allow you to cook everything in time and also clean up after.
Once you have cooked all of the cooked foods you should place them on clean plates or plastic plates and cover them with cling film and place them in the fridge, of course if you need to serve cooked foods hot you will need to cook these later towards the time of the starting time.
Make sure to wash and dry your hands before and after and during cooking, you dont want your guests getting a nasy bug or even food poisoning.
Once you have prepared all of the party food you should make sure that the table you will be placing it upon is clean and covered with a clean table cloth. Place all of the food out about 30 minutes before the guests will arrive. This will allow you to have time arranging it and sorting out any candles on cakes.
If you plan on listening to any music make sure you have a CD or Cassette player which is loud enough for everyone to hear and enjoy the music coming from it. The guests to a party are usually people you know, play music you know they may like, things which are in the charts and popular music is usually the best for most parties.
If you had lots of "maybes" from your guests when ringing them phone them two hours before the party starts and tell them to get themselves along. They may just come as they have nothing to do and are not busy anymore.
Enjoy your party and I hope you and your guests have a great time, thank you for reading.
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