Creative Ideas for Memorable Family Reunions

Okay – the first step is that you want to know the whole of your family as long back and as wide as it can go. This is a great endeavor which would bring in a great feeling of belongingness for many of the family members if not all of them. However, in order to make the family reunion a great success, you would definitely need a good plan of action. The following guidelines might be of some help to you:

1. Decide on the Place to Have Family Reunion – first of all you decide where the family reunion should take place. Would it be a picnic at some picturesque spot with tents and bonfire cooking? Should it be a dinner or lunch held at a banquet hall in the city? Or in a hotel? This is important as this would be the basis of calculating the costs involved – which is one of the major ingredients of a successful family reunion.

2. Fix up the Date of the Reunion – the next on the menu is the D-day. You need to finalize a date which would be most suitable for the family to attend. Avoid major holidays like Christmas, Easter and the like. Choose either a weekend or public holiday which is close to the weekend so people would not need to take too much leave for traveling for the reunion.

3. Delegat responsibilities – now that you have the two most important factors set, you would need to build your team. Your initial aides would be your immediate family – you need to involve them all. First of all to make a list of the known people that are part of the family and then research for more. You need to delegate to each member of your team an immediate task – (i) research on the genealogy of the family, (ii) contact the family members known, (iii) build a website where there could be daily interaction by all the members of the family, (iv) man the website daily.

4. Set a deadline for guests lists – now that you have the information channels open, you would need to set a deadline by which the registration of all those who are able to participate to the family reunion are able to come. A deadline should make it easy for you to plan the menu and the budget for the reunion in later stages.

5. Work Out the Budget – you would need to have a budget and this depends upon the location of the event and the arrangements involved for readying the location. You have many options here - it could be a registration fees charged per head (for the meal involved); it could be a huge pot luck with each family bringing something along; it could be helped with a fund raising event and so on.

6. Plan Finances – planning of the finances includes keeping accounts. You might like to open a temporary bank account – or make it permanent if you want to start a family reunion bank account (it would need to be backed by an association) – so you could keep your personal and reunion money completely separate.

7. Sending Family Reunion Invitations – as soon as the deadline ends, send invitations to everyone that registered. Ask them to confirm so the planning should go awry with the numbers. Give the people at least one month time to organize themselves. After a few days from sending the invitation, ensure that you follow up with a telephone call to make it more personal and sentimental. You can also refer sample welcome letter for a family reunion if you have difficulty coming up with one.

8. Plan for entertainment – this should be a very memorable experience. Plan for entertainment whether this is planned indoors or outdoors. You could have a dancing party, you could have magic shows for the children, old movies reruns, live orchestra or DJs, and the like. This should definitely not be a come-eat-and-go type of party.

9. Record the event – needless to say you would need a professional photographer or video person who can shoot the whole thing impartially. Do not count on personal videocams as these cannot cover the whole show as a professional (who is not involved with the party) could do it. This is one of the best ideas for family reunion memorbilia.

10. Make it memorable – ask everyone to bring something on one page. It could be anything – and you provide the list of what could it be or you will get nothing. It could be the most embarrassed moment of their life, the most scary moment of their lives, the happiest, the saddest, the proudest, etc. It could also be an advice, a message, a poem, a short story, a pencil sketch – anything. But every one of those attending should bring something. This would go into a scrap book which will be bound and replicated for all who participated along with some memorable photographs.

11. Master of the ceremony – when the reunion takes place, have someone in charge. Actually it could be rather be a group of people who would guide the rest to what event would be the next and keep the people entertained and knowing what is going on. Ensure that there is some free time so people can also interact. It would be good if you have a ‘event program’ printed and distributed so everybody knows what comes when.

12. Accommodation – this is a very crucial aspect. Ensure that you make bookings in the local motel/ hotel or guest house well in advance so the family members would have a ready place to stay when they arrive.

It would take a lot of work to have a great family reunion – however, the effort would indeed be worth it.