Family Reunion Planning Tips- Our List

One thing I subscribe to is always planning. Whenever tasked as the main planner for our family reunion, I plan at least six months. Since we are a close-knit family, our extended family is always included in reunions. Six months is a good start for our family so that all the members can clear out their calendars for our reunion. Another reason you need to plan early is to consider the special needs of each family member. In our case, I have a sister who needs special care. Planning early will ensure we can choose a place with everything she needs.

Although it may be hard to include everyone in deciding where the next family reunion will be. It’s essential to include everyone when organizing a family reunion. A great way to do this is to create a family group chat in Messenger and create a poll. You can start with basic questions like “Hot” or “Cold,” “January to June, and” July to December.” From there, you can add more specific poll questions until you end up with the perfect place for everyone. Another option to try is creating a Google Form. If you have family members you might want to vote secretly, you can also create a Google Form for your poll. If you want to learn how to create a Google Form with choices, then here is an article by Jotform.

In connection to considering everyone’s opinion is communicating well with everyone. For example, when considering family reunion ideas, everyone must understand you. A small mistake in the initial planning stages will result in bigger fights later. Which we want to avoid! A great way to collate all the details for your event is by creating a Facebook Group for the reunion. You can pin the details of the event like the time, date, and place, so people won’t forget. Another benefit of using a Facebook Group is your family members can RSVP via a poll. With this, everyone will know the necessary details faster. You can also create a Messenger Group Chat for a more detailed discussion.

In every family reunion planning, having a fixed budget will ensure a better handle on money. It’s important that at the earliest opportunity, you can already discuss the budget. This way, family members who are a bit tight with their finances can save up. Or decline early on if they can’t come. If you want to ensure everybody or most will show up, set an average budget based on everyone’s capacity. This way, the budget for each family will be attainable. Remember how we discussed planning early on? Well, organizing a family reunion early will help everyone save up! Having a large family, we pitch in for other family members who are on a budget so that everyone can join. This may not work for every family out there, but this might be an idea you can use.

Once you have a set budget for each person, the next thing is to divide the funds. You might use 10% of each person’s budget and dedicate it to the prizes. When allocating funds, it’s also important to be transparent. Some of our family members might ask you where you’ll use the funds for. When this happens, don’t feel offended. Most of the time, they don’t have any ill intent. What they want to know is where the funds are allocated. That’s why, it’s best to create a list for all the expenses made. Dedicate a special notebook for all the expenses made. Or if you’re a bit tech savvy, create an excel sheet for the expenses.

Every family reunion should have fun activities everyone can enjoy! That’s why whenever we have a family reunion, I always include activities for everyone.

This game is perfect for everyone, especially the older people in the family. What you can do is provide a family tree for each family and the family that can trace their line to the oldest family member wins! This game is exciting and you can offer plus points who can give fun facts about your ancestors too!

This game is perfect for know fun facts about each other and learn something new. The idea of this game is very simple. Ask each family member to write a fact about themselves that not everyone might know. Then line up five members including the one who wrote the fact about themself. Each family group will guess who that fact belongs and garner one point for each correct guess. The family with the most points wins!

Every family reunion should have charades as a game for everyone to enjoy! The mechanics of this game are already well-known so no need for me to explain. Provide a bunch of topics and let every family pick one. The family with the fastest time wins.

To encourage closeness with the family, let everyone share fun stories. For elderly people, this is an amazing activity that will let them reminisce and share stories about their families. Telling stories will help strengthen the bond with each family member. Aside from that, you can also learn more about each other. Your grandmother whom you might think was a goody-two-shoes all throughout, might have some interesting stories to tell. Also, I love hearing stories from the past. It makes me look at my relatives in a different light. Like they are not my aunt or uncle, they are also individuals too who had amazing lives.

This game involves a bit of planning, but the results are worth it. Like the Olympics, you can create several categories for each family member to join. After the end of your reunion, you can have an awarding ceremony for the family that wins the most gold medals. With an amazing prize!

Create your own version of Family Feud for everyone to enjoy. Before the reunion, conduct a survey via Google Forms to collate the answers. Once done, you now have questions you can ask your family. Make sure to include age-appropriate questions too. 

This is one of my favorite games to play! You can create a treasure hunt for the children, but you may also make it a game for everyone. When I was the in charge of organizing our family reunion, I included treasure hunting.

A fantastic way to enjoy the company of family is by hosting a talent show. Here, you can categorize the performances by group and individual performance. This is great family entertainment and will also showcase everyone’s talents. Choose a judge from each family to ensure that there will be no bias in the ranking of the contestants. Another way is by choosing family members who don’t want to join the contest and choosing them as judges.

One of the best ways to immortalize an event is through pictures. You can dedicate a portion of your budget to renting a photo booth. If you are a bit tight on budget, you can set up your own photo booth using a white cloth, some props and cardboard. This video by LiveBooth on Youtube is quite helpful in setting up your own DIY Photobooth

A great way to make your family reunion more exciting is by creating a theme for everyone to follow. If you want to be more subtle about your approach you can opt out of wearing matching shirts. What you can do instead is set up a theme for each year. For example, this year the theme will be “Summer Floral”. Once everyone arrives, you can place a box where each person can place their votes. At the end of the reunion, you can count the votes and declare the winner. Having a theme is also great for pictures so everybody will look cohesive.