It’s time to pop some bubbly and celebrate the news–you’re getting married! The knee has been bent, the ring is on your finger, the “YES” has been emphatically stated. Planning an event is the perfect way to share your excitement with friends and family, and we’ve got great engagement party ideas below to help you get started.
Pick Your Host
First things first, decide who will be planning your engagement party event. It can be you and your partner, or anyone you both trust and who will be happy to arrange the details. They can deal with vendors and location managers, then do all of the heavy lifting of hosting the event so that you get to relax and enjoy it. If you’re looking to do something really special, this is the perfect moment to hire a party planner to create an event to remember.
Set the Date for Your Engagement Party
You’ll both be feeling excited from your good news, so we believe there is no time like the present to celebrate! Choose a date for the party that’s within the first few months of getting engaged. You want it to be close to the proposal to keep it relevant and before you all your focus is needed for planning a wedding.
Create the Guestlist
It’s always best to have a smaller engagement party full of people you’ll be inviting to the wedding too. That way, you have a great place to start when planning your wedding guestlist. If someone else is hosting for you, always discuss the guests with them too so you’re happy with who will be joining the celebrations.
Choose a Suitable Venue
Look for a venue that will have the right amount of space for all your guests and think about how formal or casual you want it to be. It might be a private function at a restaurant or hotel, or a smaller engagement party at your house. It could be somewhere that takes you back to a certain time in your relationship. If you’ve enlisted the help of a professional party planner, they’ll have helpful suggestions ready to help you choose!
Set Up a Gift Registry
As soon as your loved ones hear the good news, they will want to send you gifts to show they’re excited for you! It’s a great idea to set up gift registry and have it ready before the invites go out for your engagement party. Your guests will appreciate the organization and will help them know the best way to say congratulations.
Send Out Engagement Party Invitations
The invites should reflect the style of the event, so your guests know what style of event to expect. It will help them plan accordingly by dressing appropriately, knowing if they can bring their children, and if they can bring a date. Send out traditional paper invites or beautifully designed paperless invites using websites such as Paperless Post.
Give at least a month’s notice for an engagement party and remember to add the RSVP with a date. The RSVP date gives a deadline for you to know who will be attending in advance, which means less time spent following up with prospective guests, and more time to organize catering and other details.
Book Your Vendors
When you have an idea of guest numbers and have a venue booked, you or your host can arrange some of the fun details of the engagement party. Think about how you would like to set the scene. Maybe you like the idea of a themed event, or to keep it simple with some flower arrangements and candles for ambiance.
More importantly, figure out what you’ll be feeding your guests. Depending on the size of your event, plan out a menu for a dinner event or appetizers for a more informal gathering. Also, if you’d like to capture all your loved ones being in one place, don’t forget to book a local event photographer!
Consider Special Moments
Your engagement party is the ideal time and place to formally ask your best man and maid of honour if they will be a part of your wedding, along with groomsmen and bridesmaids. If you have someone unconventional you would like to walk you down the aisle, or a loved one you might even want to preside over the wedding, that’s an option too. It’s up to you whether you want these to be intimate moments with the individuals or share the excitement with everyone.
Now you have the know-how to planning an engagement party, you might be excited to start organizing right away. If you’re looking for further guidance to make it happen, we’re here to help you every step of the way. Contact us today for a complimentary consultation to hear how we can make your event extra special!
If you enjoyed reading this, see our last post on how to make events eco-friendly.
Are you trying to figure out how to plan a birthday party and have an ambitious vision? Hire a party planner and have them take care of all the details so you can do more celebrating and less organizing.
Keep an eye out for the following when choosing your planner and you’re sure to find someone who can bring your birthday dreams to life in no time at all!
Great Reviews
It’s so important to check out feedback from past customers who have used the party planner you’re thinking of choosing. A quick way to find feedback is by searching for reviews on their website, social media and Google search listing. A good planner will have testimonials across all their channels, including front and centre on their homepage!
Dive in and see if you can find any compliments that relate to the kind of birthday party you’re thinking of hosting. Maybe people have commended them on their ability to handle a large-scale event or perhaps there are concrete examples of ways they went above and beyond for their clients—all will reassure you that they’re the right planner to carry out your event!
Relevant Party Planning Experience
There are lots of different types of birthday party. Whether you’re looking to host a kid’s party, a celebration for an adult or a corporate birthday event, make sure you pick a planner that has plenty of experience organizing the kind of event you want.
Some planners might specialize in children’s parties or adult parties—others can do them all! The bottom line is they need to know how to plan a birthday party that you would want to attend. Is it a surprize birthday for someone else? Either way, there are different considerations to be made for each and you need to be sure your planner can pull off the big day.
Gather all the evidence you can about the planner and their past services, and question whether their experience resonates with what you’re looking for. Get it right and you will feel confident enough to hand over the responsibility to create the event of your dreams.
Inspirational Suggestions
Even though you already have lots of ideas about the birthday party you would like, it’s useful if your planner has some unique suggestions about how you can make your party bespoke to the person you’re celebrating. There will be many challenges, so having a planner bring you inspirational ideas while taking care of the logistics too makes being a part of the planning much more fun.
Your planner might ask you about details that may not have crossed your mind yet. This is a great sign that they already have your best interests covered. From bespoke favours to entertainment or unique menu suggestions, they will take your imagination to the next level and find a way to make your outlandish ideas a reality!
Free Vancouver Party Planner Consultation
The best party planners will arrange a complimentary meeting with you to get a real flavour for the type of party you want to throw. It’s the perfect moment to share your story and ideas, as well as a chance to get to know the planner better.
Ideally, the planner should make you feel heard and say all the right things to get you feeling excited about your celebration. If they come across as disinterested or don’t seem fully engaged, maybe they’re not the right planner for you.
You’ll have lots of burning questions and this consultation is a wonderful way to have them answered up front. Ask them anything from pragmatic questions about seating to the fun stuff like what you and your guests will be eating!
You’ve guessed it – we offer a free consultation! Book with us today and we can share all the ways we can create your dream event, so you can make a forever memory. If you need a Vancouver party planner, you know who to call. We can’t wait to meet you!
If you liked this article, check out our post on 8 Essential Qualities of an Event Planner.