Has it been a long time since you have seen the whole family? Were you talking about your Great Aunt Suzy and your kids asked who? Then you’ll probably want to plan your next family reunion.
However, coordinating the whole thing is a very daunting task. You need to get everyone to pitch in and delegate tasks. Here’s how to get everyone involved in planning your next big family reunion.
- Start out by talking to your family. Send out a short questionnaire. Ask who is interested. When would be a good time to have a reunion (suggest dates that work)? What is a good location to have a reunion? Once you know what works for everyone you can start having people get their feelers out for a place that will be as centrally located as possible and the most cost effective for everyone.
- Come up with a budget that everyone is comfortable with and stick with it. There’s nothing worse than getting everyone excited about a family reunion only to have someone unable to join because he can’t afford it. So always keep everyone in mind and what their ability to pay might be so no one has to be excluded for financial reasons.
- Don’t be afraid to delegate tasks. Work to your family members’ strengths. If you have someone in your family who’s really great at hunting out bargains, put that person in charge of finding the location. Someone who’s creative can be put in charge of the games. A photographer in the family? See if he wouldn’t mind taking pictures at the reunion.
- Have a clear schedule of events with expectations. This keeps everyone on the same page so they know what’s expected of them.
- Get all ages of children involved by having them create decorative and crafty place settings so your family reunion guests will know where to sit.
- Don’t over plan. While the idea of a family reunion is to get together with the family, also remember that too much of a good thing isn’t a good thing. So do encourage the family to go off and do things on their own or even break up into smaller groups.
- Be open to others ideas and try to accommodate as many people as possible, but also keep in mind that you can’t please everyone all the time.
- Remember to have fun. This is probably the most important. You have fun with it and you might even get people coming up to you offering to help without even having to ask. Don’t count on it happening that way, though. You most likely will still have to put requests out there, but people will be more inclined to help if you aren’t super bossy and are ready and willing to have fun.
Hosting a family reunion is a lot of work. But with the right attitude and a willingness to be flexible it will come together. You’ll create a great memory for the whole family and see people you haven’t seen in a very long time. So get to planning with these tips above in mind and you’ll have a wonderful time. What are your tips for hosting a family reunion?
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