Once your sweetheart pops the question and you say yes, there is a lot of excitement, social media announcements, a lot of attention, thinking about wedding planning, and much more. Among all this, family and friends may start asking about your engagement party. An engagement party is an excellent way to start the wedding celebrations while giving both of you a chance to share your engagement with the world. The planning process is very important for a successful engagement party. Here are some tips to help you plan and host the engagement party you envision.
Decide on the Party’s Host
Depending on your culture, there are several people who could host the party. It is customary for the bride’s parents to do is, but things are changing, and it is now common for both sets of parents to host the party. In some cases, a friend might also decide to do it. If no one volunteers to host the engagement party, you will have to do it yourselves. You will need to have a budget for it and plan carefully as it can interfere with your wedding’s budget.
Set a Date
It is quite common to set a wedding date a few days after the engagement. Once you have the wedding date, you need to set an engagement party date that works for everyone. It is important to set this date a few months into the future, so everyone has time to make the proper arrangements. Also, set a strategic date that everyone can agree on. Such a date should be convenient enough that all your loved ones can attend the party. A good tip is to host the party on a long weekend when everyone is not working and to allow those who live far away to travel.
It’s important to remember that an engagement party can be a great opportunity to share the good news with everyone and bring families and friends together. It can also be the best time to share wedding plans with your loved ones.
On top of these things, you can also use your engagement party to propose again to your partner. This would be a meaningful gesture especially if you abruptly proposed or the engagement ring you used during the first proposal didn’t fit your partner’s finger. In this case, you and your future mate may consider selling your ring and buy the perfect one. This way, you can propose again and make the most out of your engagement party.
Make the Guest List
Creating the guest list is one of the first things you should do because it affects so many other aspects of your planning. When creating the list, ensure you invite all loved ones who will be invited to the wedding to the engagement party. It would be a bad form to invite a loved one to the latter and not the former. Also, have some flexibility with the list because not everyone who is invited will attend.
Set a Budget
Because your wedding is likely to follow the engagement party closely, have a strict budget for the party. You do not want to overspend here and be left with a smaller budget for the wedding. Communication between partners, talking to different vendors and parties and downsizing wherever you can are all great ways to come up with a workable budget.
Pick a Theme
Although you might want your engagement party’s theme to match that of the wedding, there is no rule stating that it has to. It is all up to you and your partner to decide on the theme, and how lavish or simple the engagement party will be.
When choosing the theme, the most important things to think about are the accent pieces, lighting, and colors, as these are the things most people are likely to notice.
Whether you want to choose a classic white theme or the one based on your favorite books and movies, you can decorate your space with themed decorations, lights, balloons, and glitter. If you have a pool in your venue, you definitely need to use it as a part of your party and fill it with themed floaties. Adding a customized unique pool float in the shape of an engagement ring will be a hit at your party as you can be sure that it will help to create unforgettable photos and give the cool vibe of your engagement.
Choose a Venue
If someone has stepped up to host the party, you do not have to worry about this too much. Otherwise, you need to decide whether you need a formal space or a casual one. If you need to rent out a space, ensure it falls within your budget.
Create and Send the Invites
Once you have settled on a theme and have completed the guest list, the next item on your agenda should be creating and sending out the engagement party invitations. Here, there are lots of options to pick from and decisions to make. Whether you want the invitations to be custom designed, simple electronic invites or you just need a solution that works, it is always best to give yourself some time to plan and design the invitations so that they turn out exactly how you want them to.
Remember that your engagement party designs are usually a reflection of you and your wedding arrangements, and they must set the tone for the upcoming wedding. Therefore, you want them to look and feel exquisite. While you could choose to hire a designer to create the engagement party invitations for you, there are online services that make this easy for you. A good example is Greenvelope, a service that makes it easy to design and send different types of invites. They have lots of engagement party invitation designs and templates for you to pick from. They also have different styles to complement your engagement party, with independent designers to help you get exactly what you are looking for. Greenvelope also helps deliver all your invitations to friends and family and offers RSVP tracking, so you do not have to do that yourself.
Using such a service also saves you money if you would like to send invitations to a lot of people and ensure your engagement party invitations are one less thing you have to worry about.
Plan the Menu
Now that you have a theme and a budget, and you know the number of attending guests, you can create a menu. You will need to think about preferences and allergens while balancing all this against your budget. You could also narrow the food and cocktail selections so you can offer a wider menu selection at the wedding.
Think About Delegating
There will be so much going on during the engagement party and you do not want to be involved in everything, especially considering that it is your engagement party. Talk to a few friends or even your wedding party to see who is available to handle some tasks. Some people can also share tasks to keep things moving. The most important thing is to make the engagement party a successful one.
While your engagement and wedding should both be happy occasions, planning for them can be incredibly stressful. Planning, finding help, budgeting, and ensuring everything are in place before the day of the engagement party will all go a long way in ensuring it is a successful one.
For more tips, check out Married Australia now, as well.
