Guide to Planning a Perfect Party

A party is a joyful event to bring friends and family together to celebrate a significant and special occasion. To host a successful party, it is best to have an objective and feel of the party in mind. Once you have decided on an idea of the party, the rest of your planning work will be naturally an extension of the idea. For example, Valentine’s Day is a romantic celebration to make your special someone feels loved and cherished, and it is best to have an intimate and romantic time together between a couple. Chinese New Year is a reunion of relatives and friends to have a get-together in the most joyous festival in the Chinese calendar, it will usually involve a large group of people. Once you have the objective of the party in mind, it will be easy to plan and make the necessary arrangements for a perfect party. With these points in mind, we have put together our thoughts below:

To-Do list (General party)

1. Theme
Start by thinking of a coherent party theme which will leave a deep, long-lasting and positive impression on your guests. Think of the things, hobbies, people, colours, characters, etc that you or the celebrated person likes and you will have many ideas for your theme. You can ask yourself: Do you want everyone to come dressed in extravagant costumes or have a fanciful cocktail party? You can have anything from an Italian party (where maybe everyone can come in Mafia black and white colours), or Old-School Prom (where your guests come dressed in a prom outfit like school days), or even extreme costume parties such as dress up as Anime, Star Wars, Sanrio or Disney characters. People love a good fun but bear in mind to make sure your guests attending understands the theme well and will know how to dress accordingly.

2. Invitation
The invitations that you send out to your guests are your very first contact with everyone attending, so make sure your invitation leaves a very deep impression. A tip: Do your invitations in accordance to your theme, this will bring great coherence to your party. You can create an invitation in your chosen party colours or do a personalised invitation which is always lovely to receive; you can add photos of yourself, your family or your pets (dogs, cats, hamsters, etc) on your invitation to have a personal touch. Basic information to include: Date & Time of party, Venue, Theme of party, any colour theme or dress-ups. We always include a map of ‘How to Get There’ in our clients’ invitations to make sure no guests lose their way. Remember that the main objective of the invitation is to make your guests feel excited and come to your party well-prepared, so be creative and fun in your approach!

3. Ambience & Decor
The mood of a party is very dependent on how you dress up your party venue. Think of the 5 senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch). These have never gone wrong for us:

a. Always have a colour theme (our clients find pastel colours very pleasing or you can decide based on the main colours of the holidays if you are having a festive gathering, for example, for Valentine’s Day, white, pink and a little red brings out the mood tremendously).
b. Party decorations such as balloons, streamers and banners (especially with birthdays, newborn parties, engagements, congratulatory parties) are the basic essentials. An additional idea you can add-on is giving each guest a party gift bag (with party poppers, party hats, sweets, chocolates, and it is very relevant if you can include an item that symbolises the theme such as maybe a small Lightsaber if you are having a Star Wars theme party). We also like to take instant Polaroids of each guest on the day of the party and add this Polaroid to their gift bag, this is highly suggested if you are having a children’s party as children love this activity very much. We also like to decorate the venue with flower petals if it is a romantic occasion, a simple way is to randomly drop flower petals around the reception and dining table. Do make sure that your decorations follow your theme as well to ensure consistency.
c. Flowers are extremely important and it is our favourite and key feature in any party, as they not only give a very elegant touch but we love that their scent creates a grand ambience. Decorate with your or the celebrated person’s favourite flowers or choose flowers in the colour of your theme. Frequently, our clients request for roses, lilies, gerberas and sunflowers.
d. Other than flowers, you may choose to add on aromatic candles to bring out the overall scent in the party venue. Place candles in proper holders and in high positions though, particularly if there will be children at your party to ensure safety for everyone.
e. Lighting can be created by many candles placed around the venue, or simply make some adjustments to your usual lighting at home if you are having a house party.
f. If you are having a reception area, this area must be decorated with the most of everything related to the theme, we like placing a big flower arrangement here to make an impact at the doorstep.
g. On top of everything, our expertise is to decorate the whole party venue with posters, banners and billboards to completely bring out the theme. Putting up posters all around the venue which hold significant meaning such as memorable photos of the celebrated person’s, having a giant billboard of the celebrated person’s portrait with personalised messages signed off by all party guests will also bring a lovely touch to the party atmosphere. Posters can also be customised according to the theme, if you are having a Star Wars theme, consider having posters of various movie screenshots or lifesize cut-outs of Star Wars characters placed all over the venue.

4. Food & Beverages
Remember your theme when deciding F&B as well, if you are having catered food, a simple addition will be to create ‘themed’ names for your food and drinks items. We suggest catering food if the crowd is anything more than 25, as this frees up your time in preparing for other party matters if you are doing the planning yourself.

5. Entertainment & Games
Your guests will love to be entertained during your party. To have a good party, consider engaging a live musician or 2-piece Mini-band (that plays jazz, rock or anything to your preference), street magician or tarot card reader (teenagers love this a lot). For children’s parties, clowns (but do take care in introducing him gently to young children as we have experiences of them being a little afraid of such a colourful and big stranger at first), animal shows, story-teller and puppet shows are always popular.