Over a period of time life becomes mundane and pleasant surprises – be it a surprise gift or a surprise party, does help spice up and bring in an excitement to life for everyone involved. Party Invitations are one of the most important aspects of any party but If you were hoping to just send out another grand invitation with date, time and location details in it might not work for a Surprise Party. As it is a Surprise party, lot of preparation has to be done and Invitations plays a big part in it. With this write up I hope to cover key elements of it in sufficient detail so that you can review these aspects before finalizing the details of your surprise party invitations.
Surprise Party Invitations – Key Elements
There are few key aspects about an invitation all of which needs to be considered and planned for which in turn contribute to making a surprise Party invitation.
- Surprise Party Invitation contents
- Mode and Timing the Invite
- Timelines
- Pre and Post Acknowledgements
- Dos and Don’ts
- Mode and contact for clarifications
Surprise Party Invitation Contents
Make sure that you have detailed out every aspect of the surprise Party. This is essential because only after detailing all items, you would know what you need to inform the invitees. The content of the surprise party invitation should be designed only after you are clear about the details of the event. For example, only after finalizing the venue, event timelines, participant arrival timelines and any special expectation from them, you would compose the invitation contents accordingly.
Mode of the Surprise Party Invitations
In the age of internet, for me it makes little sense to send out invitation by traditional post. Not only there is cost, time and effort involved in creating the formal invite, it is also not the most environment-friendly when you compare it to an email invite. Emails offer you the flexibility to send out at once to everyone or have customized versions for each invitee. It is easy to send out invites to missed invitees. There are still chance that some of the oldies and old school folks won’t have an email address, for those you can send email print out as a hard copy.
The essence is to capture the details and not to spend too much effort in making the hard copy invite much as it will be part of dustbin sooner than later. Your effort and money can be best spent elsewhere (read acknowledgement). Evite.com is a fantastic website to create and send online invitations for free. It has great features for creation of the invite and track responses. However if you are still keen to have a nice hard copy created then you can try PaperStyle.com, InvitationBox.com.
Timelines
Make sure that you have enough time allocated for planning the event and invite, sending out the invite and provide enough time for the probable invitees to respond. You need additional time for clarifications, changes and follow ups for those lazy or busy ones.
Surprise Party Invitation – Pre & Post Acknowledgements
Acknowledgment is the essence of life and living. Every good deed we do, we expect acknowledgement and recognition for that. In this time starved times, we owe a lot to those who do value our invitation and make it to parties and celebration we organize. Surprise Parties expect a lot more from the attendees and hence acknowledging them both before and after the event is critical for the success of a surprise party.
Pre event Acknowledgement involves a note as a part of the surprise party invite which is customized for the person highlighting why you value that person’s presence. It is essential NOT to generalize this pre-event acknowledgement and give credibility to this acknowledgement it is essential to remember one event/help/instance which highlights the importance of the person for you or party boy/girl.
Post event Acknowledgement is mainly to thank those who have attended the event as expected. Instead of just a thank you in the end, send them off with a (non-consumable) memorable gift for each attendee. This will value their presence and their effort in making this a successful surprise Party.
Surprise Party Invitations – Dos and Don’t
Irrespective of how clear is your invite, there are few things you want to explicitly highlight as a part of your invite so that those who attend don’t end up making those mistakes which you dread of. It is good to sit down and list Dos and Don’ts for all attendees, both for the period up to the D-day, on the Day of party and for the party itself. Once finalized, it is best to send it as a part of the surprise party invitation.
Surprise Party Invitations – Contact Point for Clarifications
Irrespective of how detailed and clear are your invitation, there is always room for incorrect interpretation and a need for further clarifications. In case of clarifications, it is good to let the attendees know about it with in the surprise Party invitation. Some attendees might have planned for something else on the same date and want to see if they can make it to both and might need some more clarifications. If you are both organizer and the close contact of the birthday person then you need to set the norm of how and you clarify. For example, create an alternate email address for clarifications or provide a specific time for calls on the party so that birthday or anniversary person(s) are not around.
With all this taken care with sufficient detail, the surprise party invitation will serve the intended purpose and lay a strong foundation for fantastic party. If you feel this article did help you in getting your surprise party invitation in shape the do let me know by commenting below. Also do suggest anything to make this article better and more helpful. I am happy to make those changes.
