Are you planning the ten year reunion for your batch? Well, here are some ideas that will help you as you finalize on what your bash should be like.
While everyone of us has our Romy and Michele moments while thinking about attending a high school reunion, hardly do we ever bother about what goes on into planning an event of such a magnitude that needs you to track down people settled in all parts of the country. Planning a class reunion can be a task that can be considered stressful and hardly very rewarding. Ensuring that the guests at a reunion have a good time can take its toll on any planner, because obviously, the idea of fun differs for every person.
The Planning Process
Form a reunion committee which will need to spend a lot of time planning the event. Ensure that you have at least 10 people in the reunion committee to do all the groundwork for the event. The first task at hand would be to ensure that you get in touch with all your classmates. If your school or college has an alumni center, then use their help to locate all your batchmates. If this is not a possibility, then you could use the services of one of the many websites that help locating people. If you are not sure about how well you can plan the reunion, then consider hiring an event planner which would take care of all your problems.
There are many event planning managers who actually specialize in reunions. If you still are interested in doing all the work with a group of your classmates, then there are many things you will have to take care of. Send out feelers asking for suggestions from people about how they would like the reunion to be planned. The best time to organize a reunion would be a holiday weekend, which will ensure the attendance of a majority of your classmates and also allow you to have an entire weekend for the reunion which can be filled choc-a-bloc with events and activities. For the main reunion event, you will need to figure out the availability of a ballroom or such a space to organize the party. Before you send out the actual invitations for the event, you will need to send out save the date invites, so that attendees can confirm attendance and not make other plans for the same time as the reunion. Other than these main details, you will also need to plan out things like the entertainment for the event, hiring a photographer, mementos, gifts, etc.
Ideas
Don’t pack your event with more activities than your guests can enjoy. This will just tire out everyone, leaving them no time to enjoy meeting old friends. That does not mean you have absolutely nothing planned for the reunion. It is important to have some icebreakers, as there will be a lot of awkward moments in the course of the party. Have games that will allow your guests to mingle with one another and rediscover each other. One of the best games to have at such an event is one where you can feature your yearbook. Pick out those votes that you cast 10 years ago about stuff like most likely to be president or movie star and guess what they are doing at present.
You may be surprised to learn which careers people have opted for and how they have turned out to become completely different individuals as compared to who they were. Another good idea is to have a theme at the party. Choose a theme that is reminiscent of your times in school or college. Plan your invitations, gifts and decorations according to the theme. For your decorations, you can also have blow-ups of pictures and photographs from your time at school/college. Ask your batchmates to send you present day pictures, so that you can have then and now photographs as a part of the decor. Another idea would be to play on the theme of ten with surveys like top ten moments from high school, top ten assignments, and use them as a part of your decor.
Give your creativity a free rein while organizing a party like this. No one would know the spirit of your class as well as you would. Remind your classmates of how life was with a blast from the past at the reunion.
