Why You Should Start Planning Your Party Early There are quite a number of opportunities to throw a party during the year what with birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, New Year, Independence Day et cetera, et cetera, but each party has one thing in common, they all have to be planned and the earlier that that planning is started the better. There are good reasons for beginning your planning early. Things can go wrong and people can let you down, but if you begin planning early, you can switch to 'plan B' easily. You may also have ideas as you are performing your planning and then you will have time to implement them. Depending on what form of party you are planning, you may have to start planning about a month ahead, but you might have to start even earlier, if you need outside catering or specialized objects such as a bouncy house. You may have to book these objects months in advance in order to get hold of exactly what food you would like or the theme of the bouncy house that you want. Depending on where you are holding the party and how many are coming, you may also need to get permission or even a license and you might even have to have portable toilets too. How about security and sign posts? For instance, it is quite normal for organizers of wedding parties in rural Thailand to employ security, who will also provide road signs and will direct traffic. Another valid reason for planning early is that you can purchase items that you need weekly and so spread the cost. You could purchase the paper plates, plastic knives, forks and spoons, plastic beakers, straws and paper table cloths in the first week, the other items you require, such as the drinks, crisps and biscuits, in the following weeks, until all you have to buy in the week of the party is the perishable food such as sausage rolls, pies, pasties, sandwiches and cakes. You may also require specialized decorations, especially for themed birthday parties, Halloween and Christmas. Buying the right decorations for these types of parties can take a long time, which is another reason for starting your planning sooner rather than later. Another good reason for getting going early is that you can send the invitations out early, which gives your guests the chance to put you in their diaries. It also gives them plenty of time to accept or refuse the invitation so that you can either invite more people to make the numbers up or you can inform the caterers that you will require less food. It is a sad fact that despite all your planning, some things will go wrong, they always do and you will forget some items too, people always do and the best precautions against these potential calamities are firstly to start planning early and secondly to get a few friends involved in the planning, because as they say, two heads are better than one.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a number of topics, but is now involved with Hindu religious beliefs. If you want to know more go to What is Religious Belief?