Hosting in the summer is one of my favorite things to do. The longer days and warm weather are the perfect excuse to gather friends together for a backyard bbq or [in this case] garden party. Garden parties are great for birthdays, weddings, baby or bridal showers, and I’ve created a step-by-step guide to help you host the best summer garden party! I recently hosted my own garden party for my 29th birthday celebration; so here are four tips that helped me plan a successful event.
1. Create A Theme
Choosing a theme is the critical starting point of planning your garden party and this begins with figuring out what the overall vibe is for your event. What is your color scheme, what florals do you plan to have, what do you envision your party looking like when the day of is here? I like to head over to my trusty Pinterest app and begin searching for “garden party inspo” to get started with figuring out my theme. I usually create a Pinterest board for the event and work from there by saving images of the aesthetic I want to achieve for my party.
If you have ever created a mood board, I would highly encourage you to use Canva.com to create a mood board for your event with photos and colors that match your overall theme. For my birthday party, I communicated the theme I had to my guests so they could dress appropriately since I wanted to take pictures with my friends and be dressed up. It’s important to communicate your theme details to your guests ahead of time.
2. Plan At Least a Month Ahead
Once you’ve figured out your garden party theme, next up is planning the event. It’s important to first create your guest list so you can account for how many people will attend and plan from there.
Deciding what you have available on hand to use and what will need to be purchased or rented should be your next course of action. For my garden party, I was estimating for a maximum guest count of 16 people, so I knew I would need to buy or rent tables and chairs for my back yard. I was able to use the Outdoor Recreation Center located on base here in England, but I know there are many local companies who do table and chair rentals and amazon will have plenty of options too.
I also used Microsoft Word to create a table so I could keep track of what needed to be done leading up to my event. I knew that I was going to need to order food/light bites, shop for flowers, order decorations, and plan to have my grass cut before the party. Using a word doc helped me to track what needed to be done, when it needed to be completed, and notate any reminders.
When shopping for tablecloths and décor for the party, I was of course trying to shop on a budget so I started out with charity shops (thrift stores) near me and visited TK Max. I bought items off Amazon too, since I had trouble finding everything I needed in those stores.
3. What’s On the Menu?
Food is definitely something that should be planned in the early stages, especially if you’re planning on ordering catered food. I shopped around at local UK grocery stores like Sainsbury, Waitrose and M&S for their catered party foods to figure out which was the best bang for my buck. I personally didn’t want to deal with cooking food the day of, so I opted to pre-order my food for the event from Sainsbury‘s and everything turned out great! Plus, I got a ton of food for £75 ($95 USD).
The only items I ended up preparing myself were my birthday cake and the charcuterie board. I also stopped at Costco to pick up bulk items like croissants, fruits and wines for the party. I’d definitely recommend shopping at Costco, Big Lots or Sams Club if you have a membership to one of these stores, as it’s nice buying bulk items for parties.
4. Create a Backup Plan
Finally, make sure to create a back up plan in case of inclement weather. Hosting a garden party is wonderful if the weather is nice, so make sure you have an option to head indoors (if space allows) or a pop-up tent to protect your food and guests from rainy weather.
I hope these tips and tricks help you in planning your next event! I had a blast planning my 29th birthday garden party and these tips could be used for a number of hosting events. As always, feel free to comment down below or contact me directly if you have any questions or comments.
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