Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

Planning A Surprise Party

“Who Else Wants to Learn The Secrets To Planning a Surprise Party?”

Dear Friend,

Planning a surprise party can be hard work and lots of fun. Surprise parties can be a lot of fun when they are planned correctly. Too often, however, people mess up the surprise and the guest of honor isn’t surprised at all.

Great parties, after all, are difficult enough to plan altogether and even more so when the guest of honor doesn’t even know there is going to be a party.

There are, however, several adjustments that you can make that will help you pull off an amazing surprise birthday party.

Click here to get your information on how to plan a surprise party!

Everyone deserves a great surprise party at least once in his or her life. Original surprise party ideas are even more difficult to come by. What follows is a list of what can go wrong with planning a surprise party and execution of a surprise party along with a few planning a surprise party ideas that will make the surprise party for your friend or loved one especially memorable.

Even before planning a surprise party, you have to lay the groundwork for the party. Indeed, to pull off a great surprise party, you need time, so you are probably going to have to start planning a surprise party a couple months in advance. You also need to establish a party planning checklist.

You need to figure out where it is going to be and figure out who is going to be the decoy, the person who gets the guest of honor to the party on the day of before you start inviting people. You also need a big head start because people become so busy so fast these days that you need to confirm people for the party well in advance. This part makes planning a surprise party more challenging, but still doable.

This is problematic; however, because the more time that elapses between the start of planning a surprise party and the big day, the more time there is for someone to open their mouths about the operation or for something else to go wrong.

Tell the people who it is very important for them to be in attendance at the surprise party.

Planning A Surprise Party – It’s All In The Planning

If you’re planning a surprise party for someone special, here are some tips that will make planning and organizing the event easier for you, and unforgettable for them!

Start early. Pulling off a surprise party takes time and a lot of planning and organizing, so starting six weeks to two months in advance is a really good idea. Setting the date for a surprise party isn’t as tricky as it seems.

Even though you have to take in a lot of information without giving any out, you’ve got the guest of honor’s whole network of friends to help you out. Consult with friends when planning a surprise party about the party date.

Covertly exchange information to determine the guest of honor’s availability. Make sure no VIPs (best friends, boyfriends, siblings) have schedule conflicts.

Find a theme. – When searching for the “perfect theme” when planning a surprise party, here are some things to keep in mind: the occasion, the time of year, the number of people you plan to invite, the age, interests and hobbies of the “guest of honor” and the people you’ll be inviting.

Decide on a color scheme. Once you’ve got your theme, figure out your party colors. Don’t go overboard, stick to two or three colors. For example, if you’re throwing a “Mexican Fiesta” red white and green, or red yellow and green would be perfect. By incorporating your colors into your theme, even inexpensive decorations and paper goods will create the ambience you want to create.

Plan your budget. Even if you don’t have a lot of money, with a little creativity and ingenuity, you can still create a memorable, exciting event by investing your time and thinking outside the box.

For example, before rushing off to the local party store, look for items you’ve already got around the house that could be used in a different way.

For example, your child’s red wagon could be filled with ice and used as a drink container if you had a western, cowboy or old-fashioned theme. Clear or colored Christmas lights can be called into duty and strung outdoors on the deck or patio.

Even summer toys such as a sand bucket and pail or water toys can be used to hold flowers, candles or decorations. Don’t forget to check at dollar stores, yard sales and thrift stores for inexpensive containers, party favors or decorations that can be incorporated into your theme.

Send out invitations. Planning a surprise party you should send out invites at least 4 weeks before your event and then do your follow up a week before to help you finalize your arrangements. Don’t forget that you can send email invitations for free — just do a search for “free email invitations” or “free online invitations” to see all your choices. Make sure that your invitations incorporate your theme.

Planning A Surprise Party – Guest

Here’s the tricky part about planning a surprise party: inviting the important guests to attend a surprise party without spilling the beans. But you can do it if you keep a few simple facts in mind:

If possible, send an electronic invitation so that there’s no paper trail.
If the guest of honor finds an invitation to her surprise party on her brother’s kitchen table, all of your hard work goes down the drain.
Some people have big mouths. You know who they are. Handle them carefully.
Keep them out of the loop as long as possible.
Inform them about the surprise party in person or over the phone.
Whisper your plan to emphasize that this is not public information.
Swear them to secrecy.
Create detailed invitations that emphasize that the party is a surprise party and should be kept secret. The invitations should include:
Name of guest of honor
Address and directions to party location
Date and time. Invite guests at least 30 to 60 minutes before the surprise honoree arrives.
For guests who have to come late, request that they arrive after the surprise. To help them out, you can suggest a post-surprise arrival time. (Ex: If you can’t arrive before 7:30 pm, please help us keep the surprise a secret by arriving at or after 9 pm.)
Contact name and phone number
RSVP deadline
Additional instructions for gifting or BYOB requests

One other key element you might want to consider when planning a surprise party is to create a scrapbook. Ask each guest to write a letter, or bring a copy of a photograph that will have special meaning to the guest of honor.

Include a copy of the invitation, pictures of the planning process and before party preparations, as well as a list of the food, guests, etc. This will become a treasured memento of the day. Don’t forget to ask someone to be the “designated photographer” or buy several disposable cameras and let guests take pictures during the party. These can be developed and added to the scrapbook later.

Prepare food and drinks that relate to your theme. Think about the “presentation” of food and drinks as well. Serving dishes that either relate to the theme or are in the color scheme will add to the festive look and feel.

Planning a surprise party is not a one man job. You will need lots of help to get organized. You need to ask for the help you need and follow up. If you’re having people bring food or drinks, or participate in setting up before the party, make a list of who is responsible for what.

Delegate as much as you need to to ensure that everything gets done and that you get to enjoy the party as well. Most people will be more than happy to bring something or help, if you just ask them.

Once you’ve given someone a task to do though, follow up with them, to make sure that everything’s getting done on time. Also, because nothing ever goes exactly according to plan, make a list of everything that would make the party “perfect.” But put a check mark or star by those things that you know aren’t vital to the success of the party.

If something does go wrong, or changes have to be made when you are planning a surprise party, you can cross these un-essentials off the “To Do” list first, and still pull off a successful party.

Save your “party notes” and when the party’s over with, do a quick evaluation of what worked and what didn’t. Over time, your party planning notebook can be used to mix and match ideas for almost any kind of party, and by referring to your notes about what worked, you won’t have to rely on your memory alone for creating well-organized and enjoyable events.

Another item you want to add to your planning a surprise party checklist is to buy Thank-You notes before the party starts. As they arrive, or sometime during the party, have each guest address an envelope to themselves. If gifts are being given, you can either make a separate list of who brought what, or write it in pencil in the upper right-hand corner of the envelope.

Having the Thank-You cards already addressed makes filling them in and sending them much easier! Another simple idea is to take the guest of honor’s picture holding each gift perhaps with the gift giver — you can include the pictures in the scrapbook later, and send a copy with the Thank-You note.

Have a good time. Once the party starts, relax and enjoy yourself. No matter what happens, everyone will have a better time, if they know that you’re having fun too.

In light of this, the surprise party invitation is very important. You want people to remember and you want to be classy, but at the same time it is important that the guest of honor not see the surprise party invitation. The surprise party needs to be a complete shock to the guest of honor. Anything less makes it almost too much trouble for all the extra effort.

You should tell people to drop subtle hints, that they are going on vacation, or have some thing they need to do around the time of the birthday in question so that the guest of honor is not surprised when no one is available on his or her birthday at the appointed time.

The trick here is to be subtle, if everyone all at once tells the guest of honor that he/she is not going to be around on his/her birthday, this will arouse immediate suspicion.

If you live with the guest of honor, planning a surprise party for him or her could pose a problem. Even if you get the guest of honor out of the house, that still leaves a lot of cooking and preparation to be done in a very short period of time.

Instead of trying to do everything yourself, recruit friends to make a dish for the party, so that only small amounts of cooking need to be done for the surprise party. Likewise, have someone else bring decorations and any beer or wine that may be present. Even if you are paying for everything, it is very important that everything look as normal as possible up until the guest of honor leaves.

That being said, the party should always be at the guest of honor’s home, because that is the easiest place to get him or her to go without letting anything on.

Finally, a lot of work goes into pulling off a successful surprise party, so the last tip is to make sure you send thank-you cards to everyone who helped pull the surprise off.

It would have been impossible without them supporting your efforts and keeping their mouths shut. Learn more about planning a surprise party by clicking on the link below.