Special days come around every so often in life. Well, if they were every day they wouldn’t be special, would they? It’s days like these that we ring in red on the calendar and plan for in advance. These will provide the photos you look back on years down the line. Which puts a lot of pressure on the day itself. We’ve all had one of those days which we looked forward to for months but it never quite lived up to it. Avoiding disappointment on the big days is essential. This will require planning and may require delegation. Many of us may prefer to keep control of everything but you often find when you get to the day that you’ve spent so long planning, it can be an anticlimax. Perhaps you’re so focused on the fruition of your hours of planning that you cannot relax. Maybe, because nothing is a surprise, the day itself just seems commonplace.
To ensure that a red letter day is as glorious as it should be, make sure you’ve got the following things nailed down:
Theme – It could be a wedding, a prom, an anniversary or a campaigning event. Whichever it is, a theme is the thing the day hangs around. For a wedding this might be completely traditional, and this is easier to plan. However, if you have a theme in mind, everyone needs to be on message. Say it’s a prom. Does everyone know it’s a Guys and Dolls theme? This can affect dress code, food and drink, location and a lot more besides.
Attendees – A special event can have hundreds of people there, or it can have just two. If it’s a wedding, chances are that there are more people there. If it’s an anniversary then you might have a few special locations planned before a quiet, romantic dinner. This can affect how travel is planned. Arriving at a special restaurant in a stylish ride from a VIP Chauffeur Car Hire service is hard to beat for intimacy.
Schedule – Planning an itinerary can be a challenge because there is an impulse to cram as much in as you can. This is where a lot of people get anxious, because the more that’s on the schedule, the more chance there is for things to go wrong. Allow room to breathe. If people are timetabled to arrive at eight for drinks at 8.15 before a meal at half past… you get the idea. Less really can be more. Keep in all the essentials and space them out enough to give everyone a chance to take a moment.
On any special day, the most important thing by far is that everyone can enjoy themselves. That’s as true for a moonlit gondola cruise for two as it is for a black-tie fundraising dinner. If you get yourself into a mindset where everything has to be planned to the letter, it’s the opposite of fun.
Special days may only come around every once in awhile. When they do come around, it’s best to be thinking “the last one was amazing, let’s try to beat it!”. Far better that than “Let’s not have another Yule Ball incident, OK?”.
