Planning a Party of Presidential Proportions: Lessons Learned (Part One)
- Bailey Edrington
- Oct 15, 2016
- 3 min read
I am happy to report that the event for our International President has come to a successful close and it was absolutely wonderful! Our International President gave the most lovely speech, our members were happy to be there and there weren't any major catastrophes.
It was a bonafide win in our record book.
Though the event went off without any major hitches, I did learn a thing or two throughout the course of planning this event and I thought I'd take a second to document them for my readers.
Lessons Learned:
1. Flowers are worth it. I promise.
Since none of us were experts at floral design, my team and I decided to go into the local florist that our sorority works with and share our vision with the experts in person, rather than on the phone. One of our team members, Allecia, met with our florist (Wright's Floral Shop in Norman, OK) and conveyed what we were looking for. Instead of hand-picking every flower and laying out every bouquet in detail ourselves, we decided to trust the experts. And let me just say: it really paid off. We could not have done it better ourselves.
These flowers taught me two things:
A. Trust the experts. I will be the first to admit I am a major control freak, especially when it comes to events I am passionate about. I tend to micromanage every detail of the events I plan; however, with these flowers, I let myself truly delegate this aspect. I am so SO glad I did. I could not have hand-picked a better design myself. I was so elated when I saw the finished product and I am beyond glad we decided to trust the experts.
B. Invest in flowers. Flowers are worth it. Flowers bring life to every room. Flowers add texture to your events. They are worth every penny. Especially in a room full of women. (oh, and if you're lucky, you'll get to take home an arrangement after the event is over)
2. The Devil is in the details
My favorite part of event planning is the personal touches. We had a few for this event:
A. Event Hashtags
Our International President, Annabel, loves social media. Her twitter account is extremely active and we all get a kick out of following it; thus, our team decided to create hashtags for our event. We settled on these two: #Psi-lebratingAnnabel (because we are Psi chapter of Gamma Phi Beta) and #KeepingUpWithPrezJones
The room lit up when we announced these and Annabel really enjoyed them. Not every member decided to use them; however, I think they truly appreciated the thought and at the very least, got a kick out of it when we announced them at the start of the meal.
B. Personal Notes
The night before the event, I hand-stamped 150 cards with different designs so the members of our chapter could write Annabel notes of encouragement. I was thrilled to see the response; nearly every member who was there wrote Annabel a note. The box we got was almost not big enough to hold all the cards! It was a simple and elegant touch that required a moderate amount of effort, but yielded significant results.
C. Decorations
Fabric table squares and floral decor: both are easy ways to spice up an event. I loved planning the little touches. It was just a bit of time commitment to finish them up, but I am absolutely thrilled with the results.
To be continued...
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