The following thoughts are from our own situation. By writing them down, when graduation time hits the Flakne household again in 2015, we can drag this out and refresh our memory! At the same time, I hope that if you have a first born graduating or if you are a pro at this tradition, some part of my ramblings will give you something to think about for your celebration. They are not organized in any way and are not listed in order of importance – just my rambling thoughts…
- In no way am I stating that my wife and I are professional party planners! In fact, most of the following ideas have been stolen from other grad parties we have attended. And every child, every family, every situation is different. Do you have a son? A daughter? A first born? The first grandchild? Does your grad play in a sport or is part of another group or activity? These are the things that will play into the type and size of grad party that you might throw. Will you have out-of-town guests for the graduation ceremony? That may determine that you will hold your party the weekend of graduation. (If that’s the case, be careful of scheduling your party the day after the graduation ceremony. If the seniors attend the all-night party, they will be exhausted the next day!) Will you invite just family or will the entire soccer team be invited, along with friends and neighbors? These are questions we had to ask ourselves and I would recommend you start asking yourselves sooner than later. Once the holidays are over, I suggest you start mapping out your plans for your grad’s celebration. The time will fly by and party day will be here before you know it!
- It really isn’t necessary to repaint your walls, remodel the powder room, or install new flooring before party time. Grad parties are all about celebrating an important milestone in your child’s life and not about what your house looks like! But if you have certain household or yard projects to complete before party day, start them now. I can’t stress how busy the spring months will be with other senior activities. Most grad parties take place outdoors, so if your yard needs some attention, call me now. I can help you with everything from a yard clean-up to an entire makeover. Maybe your yard just needs a designated entertainment area such as a patio or deck, fire pit or fireplace. Outdoor work can be done late into the fall. Spring work can be delayed by rain or by a long list of other customers who want their yards in pristine shape by the first of June! If you are not quite ready this fall, still give me a call and we can work together over the winter to plan an early spring project. Don’t wait until the snow melts to get started!
- VERY IMPORTANT! No matter what size party you hold, GET HELP! If you can arrange for a catered event – great! If that’s not your style, get someone to help in the kitchen, to replenish food and beverages, pick up the dirty dishes and glasses, direct the guest to the gift table, empty trash cans, etc. You will want to spend every moment visiting with your friends and family. Find one or two people you can rely upon that don’t really know your grad well– maybe someone from work, or a neighbor who won’t mind helping. Have someone help you, then offer to help at their party. Don’t rely on other family members as they will want to be visiting with the graduate and others too! This by far, is my most important piece of advice! Enjoy your party!
- Some families planned one combined party for several seniors. This means more guests but it also means more helpers and more people to share the cost! And not everyone has to clean their house! One drawback is that some family members and friends may feel uncomfortable attending a party at a stranger’s house with so many people they don’t know.
- A fun snack idea: Chocolate Grad Caps: place a dot of ready made chocolate frosting on top of a chocolate “Rolo” candy. Then stick 2 small rectangles of a plain Hershey bar on top (will make a square). Using a tube of ready made decorator’s icing (in your school colors), “draw” a tassel from the center of the Hershey square and off the edge to dangle like a tassel. Yum.
- We also saw personalized candy bars, m & ms, etc. These can be ordered online to include the grad’s name and graduation date, etc.
- We didn’t think of this until it was too late! Ask a friend or family member to take photos of your party guests for you. Disposable cameras can also be left on tables so guests will take some candid shots. We have very few photos of our party because we were so busy.
- About gifts… most people seem to give cash gifts these days. But how much to give? How about $20.11 for the class of 2011? The kids think it’s cute and it doesn’t really break the bank! But to be honest, it seemed that so many people were just swapping money when all was said and done. I’ll give your kid $20.11 and you give my kid $20.11. The grads didn’t care – they were just grateful for the cash! We gave out over 30 grad gifts this past summer! My wife found a very inexpensive grad gift for less than $10! Ikea has basic tool kits in a compact, hard plastic box – perfect for a dorm room. We loaded up 30 of those, wrapped them in school colors, and stuffed a roll of duct tape under the ribbon and were done. A little more work but a lot less cost! The looks on the kids’ faces were pretty funny when they opened them. “Hmmmm… why would I need a tool kit?” But we advised them they would be the hit of their dorm by having a screwdriver or hammer handy at the needed time. My son has already used his tools to install a lock on his refrigerator. Apparently, his room is where he and his friends hang out and he was getting tired of feeding everyone. Now he knows what I felt like during his hungry teenage years at home! Anyway, it’s a great gift that will last them into their first apartment or house and it’s inexpensive! Make sure you have a designated table or location for gifts and a basket for cards. Another thought about the gifts your grad will receive – we made a copy of our guest list and as the grad gifts rolled in, my son kept track of the what the gift was, and checked off the name when the thank you note went in the mail. This was also helpful in keeping us on track with our gift giving and will be handy to refer to in the future too.
- Plan to serve pulled pork sandwiches and Sloppy Joes only if you have a grad party in late May or very early June. By mid-June, everyone is pretty sick of them. Having your party early means you get to be the trendsetter. Having a party later in the season means you get to steal good ideas from others, but you risk the repetition. How many times can you really play ladder golf every weekend for six weeks and still think it’s fun! By the way, we had one of the last parties of the grad party season. Not many people played ladder golf! Now, we attended lots of my son’s friends’ parties, including those boys who played soccer with him over the years. Most parents probably won’t be attending so many grad parties to see the repetition of food and games. And in the end, does it really matter? My point is: just be creative in your choices if you want your party to stand out as unique.
- Back to food. You will need to decide what you will serve. Make it simple by planning a party between 2:00 and 5:00 pm and people won’t expect a meal. Serve some light finger foods, cake or other dessert a beverage and be done! Or if you want to serve a buffet meal, plan your hours accordingly. Most parties, if not all, were “Open House” format with guests dropping in anytime in the time frame. This works best as many people have other obligations, and of course, the graduating class will be bouncing from party to party. Back to food again. Keep it simple! Plan food items that can be frozen if you have extras. That way you can over buy and not worry about not having enough food. We ate Swedish Meatballs all summer. Our party was a Just Desserts party since it was in the evening. We had cake, a chocolate fountain, lots of bars, root beer floats, a make-your-own Sundae bar. You get the idea. But most people don’t want to just eat sweets all night. So we also served Swedish Meatballs later in the evening. And we prepared A LOT of Swedish Meatballs. We have finally eaten our way through the overage! We bought these at Ikea also – great price and great taste, the sauce is easy to make and they freeze well! Just another plug for Ikea!
- Of course, not all of your guests will be attending so many of grad parties, but if you are close to your kids’ friends and their families, I guarantee that you will all be attending each others parties. I am in no way saying you have to keep up with the Jones or try to outdo everyone, but for sanity’s sake, it’s nice to add a different touch to your party to have it be special for your grad and your guests. And as we attended what we called, “The Grad Party Circuit”, our biggest surprise was that WE were never home to work on household projects once the parties started. Do what you can in advance. Use those stormy winter days to get your big and little projects done.
- If you use paper products such as plates, cups, and napkins and plastic utensils, purchase the solid colored ones in your school colors and not the special graduation designs. Most stores will allow you to return the plain ones if you have extras while the graduation sets are considered “seasonal” and are not returnable. Purchase everything early, to ensure ample supply, but not too early. Most stores only allow returns within 30 days of purchase. Remember to save your receipts. Order balloons early—stores tend to run out of school colors. Remember kids rarely use napkins and plates as they usually graze. And people tend to fill a cup and then leave it somewhere so they grab another cup. Buy lots of cups. And leave some permanent markers out so people can write their names on their cups. Sometimes that helps. Or serve drinks in cans or bottles. If you plan to rent real dishes and glasses, reserve them early! May and June are busy months for grad parties and weddings!
- Parties should be FUN! Music breaks up the awkwardness at the beginning of the party when few guests have arrived or if your guests don’t know each other. Put together an area in your home, garage, or yard to pay tribute to your grad’s life and accomplishments. Guests who don’t know many people at your party will appreciate having something to look at and/or do to keep busy. Set up tables so that people can move around them and will have areas to congregate to visit. If your yard can accommodate outdoor games or another form of entertainment, by all means, set them up. The kids will usually get them started and adults will join in. Even ladder golf! Rental places such as A to Z Rentals in
Eden Prairie
- Some families rented inflatable games such as a horizontal bungee jump, human foosball, human bowling, moon jumps, etc. These can get pricy, but the kids, especially the teens love them. Your senior’s all night party will most likely have these, so avoid duplication if you rent one of these.
- Invitations – start thinking about these during those cold winter months. Make your guest list and check it twice, even more than that! Invitations can be made, stamped, and addressed well in advance. One less thing to do when it gets busy. Mail them a good four to five weeks before the party date. Many grads sent Christmas photo card style invitations. A couple of fun photos, even one or two of the grad as a baby or young child, with the pertinent info is really all you need. Simple and fairly inexpensive. Photo stores and most stores that print photos (Walgreens, Walmart, Target, Kinkos, etc) can make these up in little time and will provide envelopes. We ended up putting together our own layout and had it printed at Insty Prints for a little less than a photo card but it was a bit more work. That was my wife wanting something just a little bit different. Some photographers who shoot the senior portraits for the grads can also put together invitations. But photos are a must! Everyone loves seeing the grad’s picture, especially baby pics!
- Thank you notes – a must! Your grad will end up with a small fortune of cash contributions from their party guests. They will absolutely need to write a personalized thank you to each gift giver! Don’t let them spend the money until this job is complete! That’s a little incentive! Since my son graduated, I have become involved with an incredible company called SendOutCards. You can create unique photo invitations and thank you notes online. SendOutCards prints them and mails them for you. I would be happy to show you how easy this system makes card sending for all occasions! Call me or go back to my web site and contact me on my "Contact Us" page.
- If your grad party will be held in your garage, a colorful way to hide your unsightly stuff is to vertically hang inexpensive plastic or paper tablecloths from the ceiling or from a height that will do the job. We striped several purple and gold table cloths across our third garage stall which kept people out of that area and hid the junk. We actually stapled the top edge around a rope we strung from the front wall to the back wall. It brought a lot of color to the garage and we reused the tablecloths all summer at picnics and on camping trips.
- About tables. We decided early on that we were not going to rent a tent or tables for our party. We have a large garage in case of rain (always have a rain back-up plan). Our plan was to use our two 8 foot banquet tables and several card tables in the garage for those who wanted to get away from the backyard music. We didn’t need to worry about getting out of the sun because we had an evening party. Anyway, about a week before our party, my wife panicked and thought we should rent tables. Here’s what you should think about. If your party will only be held in your garage, you won’t want too many tables because there will not be room for people to walk around. Some people rented tents (helps fulfill the rain back-up plan) and put tables under the tents or canopies. That works, but to be honest with you, I never saw people really sitting there, even on the rainy days. Take a look at your guest list. How many elderly or disabled people will you expect? Make sure you have plenty of places for them to sit down. Maybe you won’t even need tables for eating. Will you have just finger food or just cake? Maybe your patio/deck tables will be enough, along with a couple of card tables. When the panic subsided, we rented several round high top tables from A to Z Rentals. People enjoyed standing around them with their drinks. We never rented banquet tables, and we were fine with our two 8 foot long tables, a couple of card tables, and two round patio tables. We had about 150 people at my son’s party, if that helps with your planning. Most people stood to visit or were out playing volleyball or badminton. We did rent some chairs, however. Again, A to Z came through with purple and yellow chairs! They have all different school colors, which, of course, need to be reserved early. But the colored chairs really added a fun element, even though they were not used by many.
- Photo albums of your grad. This is my wife’s least favorite subject. For the past decade, she counted down the remaining time she had to creatively represent our son’s life in a photo journal. “Only 8 more years to get the scrapbooks finished!” etc. Before she knew it, the countdown was in months, not years. And still not a scrapbook to be found! For those of you who have chronicled your children’s story in books, wonderful! But, my wife finally realized, that all those years of panic were for nothing. (It sounds like she panics a lot, doesn’t it? She really doesn’t). Grad party guests love to look at photos, but this is not the time to dig out the boxes of photos and slap them in a book! If years of photos are really in boxes, you will need to dig them out – sooner than later! Sort through the piles of pictures and determine which ones you will use. You may want to enlarge some or touch others up. This all takes time. Do this during the winter months. You will all be too busy in the spring! Put together a photo board (foam board) with your grad’s favorite photos. Stores like Archivers sell scrapbooking papers specific to each local high school, including some with the high school sports and activities. We found Chaska Hawks Soccer and paper with Chaska High School Graduation on them. You can use these on the photo boards for color and interest. They also sell lots of other fun scrapbooking type decorations that you can attach to the photo board for interest. Most likely, your grad will even like to help with this, even the boys! Make one for school life, one for their favorite sport or activity, one for family. The photos don’t necessarily need to be in chronological order. A photo of a young football player next to the high school version tells a powerful story. Be creative in how you put these together. Make sure to include photos of your grad with family members and friends you know will be at the party. They will love to relive the shared memories and people like to see themselves in pictures! And save a spot to add pictures from the graduation ceremony when they become available. Those beautiful scrapbooks? I noticed that most grad party guests don’t spend time to look through those page by page, but of course, by all means, put them out! Your hard work will not go unnoticed.
- One idea we saw at several parties was to display photos on the tables. Put a colored tablecloth on the table. Spread photos around so guests can see them. Place a card next to each photo, describing what the grad was doing in the photo – helps people connect. Then place a clear plastic table cloth on top to protect the photos. Fabric stores sell heavy duty clear plastic that can be cut to specific lengths.
- Display your son or daughter’s favorite things from their past. My son was a soccer player and we hung up one of his first soccer jerseys, small and cute! We put out his favorite Teddy Bear, a baby outfit and shoes, his favorite books from his childhood, projects that he had made in school, awards he had earned. All this made a fun display for people to admire and remember him from the various stages of his life. And of course you should display his graduation gown, cap and tassel, and diploma. Your kids will help you pick out the fun stuff. This is another project that can be done months in advance! Box it up so it’s all ready to put out the day before the party.
- Buy a frame with a photo mat and have guests write their best wishes to the grad on the mat. Then place a grad photo in the mat and frame and your grad will have a keepsake of his party and well wishes from friends and family members.
- Here’s another project your teen will enjoy – creating a DVD of his or her life. Now that you have those favorite photos handy, you may need to scan some so they can be manipulated in digital format. There are so many different slide show and video programs available these days. Your grad will have fun piecing together his or her life in video format and choosing appropriate music. Or maybe you will want to make this presentation a surprise for your teen. Guests will enjoy watching a show that continually loops or sitting down to watch a short show at designated times throughout the party. (You can have your party helper continue to replay the video if it needs to be manually turned on). Make sure the photos remain on the screen long enough to view the details or read captions about each photo if on a slide show. Group photos should remain up a little longer so people can look at each individual in the shot. Videos obviously run at their own pace, just take care not to crop video shots too short or the presentation will be too choppy to follow comfortably. And always make sure that you do a practice run with your DVD or program on whatever system you will use on party day. Technical difficulties are no fun to deal with when you are busy!
- Have party guests write down words of comfort and wisdom on small pieces of paper and place in a large jar. Once homesickness sets in, college freshmen can read through these messages for some comfort from home!
I hope I have given you some food for thought. The senior year is such an exciting and memorable time for the student and the family. Stress over a grad party just doesn’t belong there! Just make a plan and work on projects during the winter months. Keep the spring months as low key as possible to enjoy the last days of your senior’s last year of high school.
Greg Flakne
P.S. For first timers, I have a few extra little gems. Even if your son or daughter doesn’t play a spring sport or is not involved in activities during the spring, you will have all sorts of unexpected surprises that will require your time. Every school is different, I know. But I have heard that many schools in the area ask the parents to create a life-size drawing of their grad for the end of school or all night party. Some schools supply the paper, others supply the actual cut-out. Our school didn’t supply anything so we made this life-size being from scratch. Either way, you will want to create a life size portrait of your child, brimming with their personality. It’s fun, but takes time. And they make a great grad party decoration! This was a stressor for some as we didn’t hear about it until late April. Ask your school’s graduation party committee if you will be asked to make anything to represent your grad and get the instructions early.
Baby photos for everyone! During the senior year, you will be asked about a dozen times for a baby photo of your child. One for the yearbook, one for the church bulletin, one for end of the year choir slide show. You get the idea! Just get those photos out now and make some copies of your favorites! Our school had a “Guess Who” display at the all night party with the baby photo covering the senior’s grad photo. Pretty fun to see those cute babies and the good looking, young adults they became – that’s what it’s all about!
Also, if you have the opportunity, volunteer to work at the after graduation party. What a great experience to see these kids together for the last time. Many of these kids you have probably known since Kindergarten or first grade. Enjoy them all! They will be gone before you know it!
