Five Tips For Planning A Great End of Summer Party

Wow! Where did the time go? Seems like just yesterday I was hauling 25 bags of mulch from Home Depot to finish off the flower beds. Now, suddenly, the mulch has sunk into the soil, the days are getting shorter, kids have returned to school, and Labor Day has come and gone. Whaaa? 

So my sister is turning 60. We were planning a surprise birthday party for her closer to the day of her birthday when she surprised US and said she had a work-related retreat she had to attend that weekend. So suddenly I'm throwing a surprise birthday party for a guest list of 20 in under ONE WEEK! If you ever find yourself expecting unexpected guests, here are some tips on how to handle the sit-ee-a-tion!

TIP #1 TAKE STOCK OF WHAT YOU HAVE, NEED 

Tableware: Lucky for me, I still have beautiful plates, wine glasses, and champagne flutes from an annual Mother's Day soiree I threw for three consecutive years a decade ago. (See, husband … being a semi-hoarder does come in handy!) So I didn't have to rush out and buy anything new. Except flatware. And the Home Good Store has really pretty and fancy-looking disposable flatware I can dash out and buy today. And if they're out, there's always good 'ole Amazon. (Y’all know I love my Home Goods Store now, but I ain't throwing no shade when I say it's kind of hit or miss at what you can find there when you're looking for something specifically.)

Setting: It's an outdoor party, and I redid my deck at the beginning of the summer so things look decent. Ummm, I have six chairs around the patio table, a long built-in bench that can seat about eight others (if they huddle real close), and two chaise lounges. So overflow folks gonna have to stand or share seats. It is what it is! I washed the outdoor tablecloth, and it's good to go. Perfect. The flowers ... not looking so good. But I have two faux plants in the garage I can place on either side of the grill, and I'll add a couple of pots of fresh plants from Home Depot just to spiff things up back there. You get my point. Walk around the party area and identify what you can repurpose, use from another part of the house, or absolutely must spend money on for something new.

TIP #2 SET A SCHEDULE FOR WHAT YOU'LL ACCOMPLISH AND WHEN

Don't bite off more than you can chew. Estimate about how long you think it will take to pull everything together and break it into small bites.

• Day 7 Take stock of the situation. Order anything that will take at least a week to get or requires a service provider -- caterer (if you're going that route), flowers, cake, etc.
• Day 6 and 5 Do any yucky stuff you really don't want to do NOW. Like pulling weeds from the flower beds. This ensures it gets done.
• Day 4 Go grocery shopping or order your groceries and food-related items to be delivered. This isn't the task to wait to do until the day of. It's time-consuming, and doing it three days before the event gives you time to discover what you forget to get. There's always something!
• Day 3 Clean your house TODAY! Even the rooms where you think guests won't go. (You'd be surprised at the number of family members and friends who give tours of your house when your back is turned!) Either lock those doors or clean the rooms. You'll thank me later!
• Day 2 Make sure there are clean hand towels and toilet paper in the guest bathroom today so you won't have to worry about these minor but important details the day of. Set up the backyard space (weather permitting) so all you have to do on Party Day is sush things up a bit. Please don't wait until the day of to do these things. It will be too much!
• Party Day! How did those days fly by? This is when all things come together. You pick up your party decorations (or have someone else pick them up for you), the cake, lay out the food, stir the drinks, and don't forget the ice! Set your timer on your phone so that TWO HOURS before the party starts you go get dressed! Nothing worse than those early bird guests showing up with you still flying around the house in your ratty robe and hair all over your head. TWO HOURS BEFORE, I SAY!

TIP #3 BE PREPARED FOR SETBACKS!

Prepare for the unexpected because something WILL happen. Once a possum decided to die under my deck three days before a backyard soiree, and the smell was horrific! So we had to spend $175 to have his carcass carted away. Really?! But at least the backyard didn't smell like roadkill! Be sure to budget for the unexpected.

TIP #4 DON'T TRY TO MULTI TASK

When you stay focused on one task, you'll finish it faster than when you try to do two to five things at once. Then you're just courting disaster. I didn't follow my own advice, and the day before my sister's party, I decided that I could boil eggs for the potato salad while I also spray-treated the back lawn with pesticide to keep the bugs away. I was dashing back and forth across the lawn with the water hose/pesticide when I heard a loud POP! I stopped and looked around. Didn't see anything so I kept spraying. Until I heard the smoke alarm in the house shouting, "Warning. Evacuate. Warning. Warning. Fire!" I rushed inside to discover the whole house submerged in smoke and exploded eggs EVERYWHERE! Noooooooo!! So instead of saving me time, I lost time airing out the house and cleaning up burnt boiled eggs (which don't smell too great, ma'am!) that had flown EVERYWHERE!

TIP #5 HAVE FUN! 

The day of your party, remember to take a deep breath and set aside time to enjoy your guests. Although it took days to pull things together, time will fly by quickly once people arrive. So be sure you give yourself permission to sit down and eat when everyone else does. And set aside a plate for tomorrow so you'll be able to enjoy it more when you're under less stress! Lol. 

My sister had an AMAZING experience! It was worth every agonizing minute just to see the look on her face. I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

But now, I have to go clean egg off of my ceiling that I just discovered when I looked up.