Nov 15, 2010 | Family Parties, Other Events, wedding planning, Weddings
I get a lot of questions from my clients about when to send out invitations. Here are a few guidelines to get you through this part of wedding or party planning:
You can send out save-the-date cards (or e-mails, or you can make phone calls) about six months in advance. If you have guests who might come from overseas or who have other situations that require more notice, you can alert them to the date a year in advance. Most people have trouble planning anything more than a year in advance, though, so if you tell people farther ahead than that, expect to remind them at about the 6 to 9 month mark.
Be prepared to put your invitations into the mail six to eight weeks before the event. Leave yourself ample time to address all the invitations if you are doing them yourself. If you are hiring a calligrapher to address them, be sure to ask him or her how much time is needed for the number of invitations you have. Then add a week, just to be on the safe side.
Your RSVP deadline should be about three weeks ahead of the wedding or party. (If you only plan to get the invitations into the mail six weeks ahead of the wedding date, you can get away with about 2 weeks for the RSVP date.) Your caterer will probably want a final head count between a week and two weeks ahead of the date, and you want to leave yourself enough time to call the people who have not responded by the deadline.
And there will be people who don’t respond. Be sure to leave yourself enough time to call them and just check in. You don’t have to remind them that they have been rude enough not to reply. Just ask them if they plan to be there (and what they plan to eat if you have asked people to tell you in advance). Don’t skip this step. You don’t want to have people show up if you haven’t planned to feed them.
Your spreadsheet is useful for making place cards, too. Photo courtesy of Artisan Events, Inc.
I find that the best way to keep track of the guest list is with a spreadsheet program. I like to have columns for name; address; save-the-date card sent; invitation sent; responded yes or no; and dish requested. The same sheet can also double as a gift tracker so you know what to thank people for and whether you have done so. And you can use it to help you make place cards.These are only guidelines, of course. Special situations may require a different approach. But you can use them as a road map to get you started on this most important part of the process.
Oct 14, 2010 | Budget Planning, Family Parties, Other Events, Parties and Special Events, wedding planning, Weddings
In a previous post, we looked at how the size of a catering company affects your choice of caterer. Here are some further thoughts on how to hire a caterer.
Can your caterer do this? Photo by Magical Moments Photography.
Once you have narrowed down your list of caterers, how do you make a final choice? The first question you want to be able to answer is, “What is your budget?” If you tell a caterer you don’t know what your budget is, they are likely to give you their most expensive menu. So, how do you have any idea what your budget is?
Catering prices are generally broken down into three parts. The first part is for food and is usually calculated on a per-guest basis. The second part is for service and should generally be a price per server per hour. The third part is for rentals. Not all contracts have that third part.
The food cost is the part that has the most flexibility. Think about what you would pay per person for a restaurant meal of a quality comparable to the caterer’s food. Most caterers (but especially smaller caterers) can give you a menu within any reasonable budget.
But the best way to figure out which caterer to hire is to meet with them and taste their food. Most caterers will do a tasting at no charge. Some charge for a tasting but will sometimes credit the amount against any future order.
Before you go for a tasting, talk to the caterer about a sample menu so they can make you something you will like. Then feel free to taste, savor, and ask questions. Use the tasting as an opportunity to get to know the caterer and their staff. And always taste the food from more than one caterer before you hire.
Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind when you are looking for a caterer is that they are working for you. You should be able to get satisfactory answers to your questions and get a menu within your budget and to your taste. If you can’t get these things, keep looking until you find a caterer you can work with happily.
Need recommendations for a caterer? Check with your event planner!
Jun 13, 2010 | Other Events
I had an interesting interview a few weeks ago for a corporate event. The organization was doing an awards ceremony and needed someone to get the speakers and awardees on and off stage in an efficient manner. At the interview, I stressed my live theatre background, thinking that it was relevant to the task at hand. The woman interviewing me, however, kept asking about my other events experience, because, as she said, “Your theatre experience doesn’t count.”
Despite her being a thoroughly well educated woman, I have to take exception to her point of view. I realize that there are many misconceptions about work in the theatre. There are those who think that “putting on a play” is not work and requires no real skill. I’d like to set the record straight.
The modern theatre stage manager is a professional who not only juggles schedules and keeps a director happy (sometimes no small task), but one who also coordinates the electrical, sound, properties, set, costumes, and (often) projections or video departments. The stage manager facilitates communication among all these people, plus the actors. And the stage manager is the executive instrument in the technical running of each performance. And if it’s a musical or an opera, add the elements of music and dance to the mix. It’s not an easy job, although it can be a very rewarding one.
Quite honestly, corporate events are much easier. They generally have fewer elements, although they have the same need for communication and coordination. And those that are as complicated as a theatrical performance generally hire a theatre stage manager to run them. But it’s the same skill set, in either case. So, theatre experience is more than relevant to other kinds of events. (I’ll comment on theatre and weddings again some day.)
So, if you are thinking of hiring me and have doubts about the relevance of my theatre experience, just ask me how it is related. I will be happy to tell you.
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