Suprise Party Planning *help needed*

[Jordanblackpool]

Helllo!!!

I need abit of help or advice if anyone has any to offer!

Me and my brother are in the early stages of looking at throwing a suprise party for my parents who celebrate their 30th wedding anniversery in May, but we havent a clue where to start!

We sort of have a venue in mind, but thats it at this stage!

Does anyone have any experience in this? What difficulties are we going to need to overcome??

Im making it sound alot harder than it should, but I am a man!!!

Also, do people give gifts at these things? *** were doing a trip to Orlando in August....and was wondering if we should ask people to chip in towards something for them to do in Orlando...do people do that? or is that only at weddings???

 

[Pegasus928]

We have organised a couple of surprise parties and I think the hardest thing is always keeping it a surprise in the first place.
Make a list of everyone who you think you should invite but then take the list to those that know your parents best (sisters, brothers etc) as they will no doubt think of people to add to the list that you had either forgotten or didn't know about.
Make sure the invites tell everyone to be there at least 15 minutes before you are planning on arriving with your parents - there will always be stragglers - and if they cannot make the time tell them to stay away until 15 minutes after you arrive to stop your parents spying anyone before the surprise is sprung.
With it being a big event like a 30th anniversary then people will want to give gifts - but I can't see any reason why it would be unacceptable for you to put a little foot note on the invites saying that if people are struggling to find something then money could be put towards a bigger gift (with the names of all those that added to it put on the gift tag for example)
Once you have a list of people then look for your venue. Size is important as there is nothing worse than hiring a hall for 150 when only 50 are coming as it makes the place look empty.
Will you be doing some food? If so will you do it yourself, ask someone in the family or bring in a caterer. A lot of venues offer catering but it can be pricey. Having said that if it is something you are not used to doing it will be worth paying someone else to take the pressure off.

 

[Tinkerbell1989]

This is actually quite a useful question Jordan - my parents are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in August and thought we might plan a surprise party!

xx