Planning

I love planning and organizing events. It's one of my passion.

Coming up, I have three birthday parties to plan, back-to-back, or which two are a very big deal. All three parties are going to be held at my house and the earliest one is coming up next Saturday.

I'm still scouting for the perfect caterers because I want to have different cuisine for all three parties. Caterers are now just so expensive, but I don't blame them, with the inflation of food prices I guess it's just a circle we have to go through. For a nice good buffet line, it'll cost easily between RM13-20 per pax.

Then there's the task of coming up with the guest list and calling everyone up to invite them, to get them to rsvp, then to send them a reminder a week before the event. Once the guest list is prepared about 90%, I need to figure out how much food to cater. If I have 70 people coming, it's not advisable to order for 70 because that would just be too much food. But the right number has to be catered because you don't want to have less food as well because that just would just be unacceptable. So usually I break my list down to adults and children and then order about 20% less of the confirmed adults coming.

It's best to book the caterers about a month or two before the event, especially when the date is near a festive season. It's safer to book and then cancel if you found a better caterer or alternative then to end up with no caterer at all.

Sometimes if there are side dishes that are being prepared, then the amount would reduce because not everyone would take a portion of each dish, and we'll just end up having too much leftovers.

With a large group of people coming, there's a need for tables and chairs to be setup in the porch. I'm also looking into putting a canopy up in case it rains, plus it'll add a warm touch to the house.