Family reunions are the best time to connect and catch up with extended family members that you don’t get to be with very often. Having family reunions have been popular for the past several decades, and a lot of families still practice it now, once or twice each year. Whether you will be gathering with a few close family members, or lots of relatives, planning a cheerful and memorable family reunion can be challenging.
If you are thinking of hosting a family reunion soon, but you still don’t know how what to do, then you’re in the right place. Today, we are giving you some of the best tips to be able to plan a cheerful family reunion.
Allow Plenty of Time to Be Ready for the Family Reunion
One of the best tips we can give you to be able to plan a cheerful family reunion is to plan in advance. In hosting a family reunion, your goal is to get a lot of people to attend. As much as possible, you want your whole extended family to be complete in the reunion. Therefore, you need to give everyone plenty of time and advance notice about the family reunion you are planning. Give them time to get the date on of their calendars, and as well as make travel plans if they are coming from far places.
Decide How Long the Event Will Last
Another thing you need to plan on is the duration of the family reunion. Are you inviting your relatives over for just one meal? Or do you want them to stay the whole weekend? Deciding on the duration of your family reunion will help you determine how many activities you need to make, and how much food you need to provide. Choosing a longer family reunion means that you will be able to spend lots of time together as a happy family.
Once you decide, make sure that you let everyone know about the length of the event clearly. This will also help them prepare and know what to expect.
Ask for Help
When planning for a family reunion, you don’t have to do everything alone. You can always ask for help from other relatives and family members. In fact, you can create a planning committee for the reunion. That way, you can delegate tasks such as preparing activities, food, and accommodation. If you have a big family, then it means there will be lots of people who can help you make the reunion successful.
Prepare Your Budget
Together with your planning committee, you need to decide if you need to ask folks to help pitch in to balance the cost of the venue, accommodations, food, and activities. If you ask for people to pitch in, you also need to come up with a figure that will be affordable for everyone attending the family reunion. This is important because expenses can go out of hand quickly, especially if you will be traveling for the event, or if there will be lots of attendees.
Create a Guest List
Creating a guest list will help you come up with how large your reunion would be. It is fun to host a giant event with your extended family from both sides, but you can also go for a smaller event. You can consider here your allotted budget for the event, and as well as the time you have to plan and prepare everything. Just don’t plan more than what you can cater to.
Consider Who Are Attending When Planning the Activities
To make the family reunion fun, you need to come up with different activities. When planning the activities, it is important to consider who is attending the reunion. For example, if your family reunion is multi-generational, you need to prepare for activities for different age groups. Or maybe you can also think of activities that everyone, no matter the age, will enjoy. This will help everyone bond with each other and become closer.
Aside from that, you also need to pick the most convenient location for everyone. It’s best if you can find locations that are within reasonable driving distance for those in your group who don’t need to book a flight. This will help avoid big inconvenience and cost for many of your attendees.
Always Have a Backup Plan
Just like in planning other events, you also need to have a backup plan when planning a family reunion. For instance, if ever the weather does not cooperate, make sure that you know what to do. Ensure that you have enough space or room to accommodate everyone in the backup area you prepared.
Include Storytelling and Picture Taking in the Activities
Family reunions are the perfect time to catch up with distant family members and relatives. Therefore, you can prompt the older generations to share their stories. Or maybe you can ask everyone to bring photos that you all can reminisce about with your relatives. And of course, don’t forget to take recent pictures at the reunion.
Prepare Some Souvenirs
To make your family reunion more memorable for everyone, you can prepare some souvenirs, too. They shouldn’t be expensive. For example, you can make cute souvenir shirts for the kids, compile a mini photo album for everyone, or make a cookbook containing all the favorite recipes from family holiday dinners. These will surely make you all remember how happy your family is when together.
These are the best tips we can give for planning a cheerful family reunion. We hope these tips will help you create an experience that will make everyone get excited about the next reunion.