I love entertaining and planning parties but these festivities can get pretty costly and could take up a lot of your time. Some feel that have no time to plan and claim to have little or no creativity and would rather hire a diy party planner to handle it. I can admit that after planning for food, cake, decorations, gifts, table settings and entertainment, you could easily spend a pretty penny and get overwhelmed. But as an event planner myself I plan to teach you how to use your own resources to plan, with few or minimal purchases to decorate, and entertain your next occasion with ease.

 

 

You may wonder why I would take such a risk when this could easily have been an article selling myself and my services. Well I believe we all learn from each other and I did not wake up and decide to be in the event planning business, it came to me after seeing how easy it is to plan these events with a little time and patience.

 

 

 

When planning for your next event the first thing you should always do is a sketch. Even if you are not an artist you can doddle some items on a page to get an idea rolling. I find sketches to be useful for current events and can also be saved for future events and just think, If you forget a detail you will always have a blue print of your original idea to refer back to.

 

 

Next of course should be your budget. How much do you have to spend on your ideas. Separating each into categories, such as decorations with sub categories listing items like balloons, table cloths, centerpieces, etc. Or Food with menu selections and sub categories listing utensils and other items needed to keep things rolling smoothly.

 

 

Now to the fun stuff, Once you have your idea in place and you know how much you plan to spend you can begin putting things together. I try to plan for events a month or more in advance. Leaving time to shop around for discounts and clip and use coupons. By now you should have your color scheme and decorations sort out, leaving room for corrections if you under or over estimated some where.

 

 

If you are not a baker, then I would say to begin shopping around for a baker or bakery for your cake, cupcakes or other dessert choices. This should be about a couple of weeks to a month before your event depending on the availability of your cake decorator. Hopefully this and maybe the food will be the bulk of your purchase. Plan wisely keeping in mind flavors and prices per serving. Some bakers charge by size of the cake and some may charge per serving and always express what you have available to spend. There is nothing worse than falling in love with an idea that you can't afford.

 

 

Utilize your computer for tutorials and other free information on websites like You Tube and search engines as Google. The ideas and creativity are endless on the World Wide Web. Many pros often refer back to ideas found online, books or even in blogs. It is a good way to keep up with current trends and tips.