How to Throw An Easy, Fun Party 

Blog Written by Horderly Founder, Jamie Hord:

A few weeks ago, Fillip and I hosted our first Horderly party in our new home (and first party since COVID-19 happened), so we thought we’d share our favorite tips and tricks to throwing an easy, safe (and fun) party! 

Fillip and I had been away for two weeks prior and got home the day before the party – so there had to be lots of planning beforehand and last-minute prep the day before. Here are a few things we did in order to keep our sanity hosting a party of 44 people:

Send Evites

At first, we wanted to have invites printed and mailed out, but this just became too much of an ordeal. We decided to simply send Evites instead. This made it super easy to keep track of who was and wasn’t attending while we were away. You can also add any party notes to the invite – and send reminders!

Be Safe

These days, you have to think of everyone’s safety before throwing an event. Although we planned for this to be an outside event, we still wanted to err on the side of caution with COVID-19 protocols since our entire team would be together. We ended up having everyone either send us their vaccine confirmation or a negative covid test the day before or the day of the party and our HR director was in charge of receiving these ahead of time.

Delegate

As a host, you don’t want to be taking care of everything when you should be focusing on entertaining your guests. We had our cleaning lady come in the day before the event, we hired a photographer for the day, a bartender to keep drinks flowing and we also had food catered. I also designated tasks and assigned each person on our operations team to stay sober at the beginning to pick up the catered food and pick up guests from the train.

Think Simple

There’s no need to hire a chef or look into some big shindig. We initially looked into hiring a personal chef and having someone serve and clean throughout the day, but at the end of the day everyone just wants to see each other and no one really cares about all of the hoopla – so we ended up getting Mighty Quinn’s BBQ to cater which was so simple and so good (and saved us so much money)! 

We also looked into getting an outdoor tent and we are so glad we didn’t end up getting it because no one would have used it! 

We asked our favorite local bartender to make drinks, along with picking up all the ingredients needed which made this SO easy. We threw together fun signature drink names and created an easy drink menu on Etsy. Thanks for the keg Lost Farmer!

Savor the Moment

Photos are such an important part of any party! We asked our good friend who is a photographer to take photos – we even invited her boyfriend to join to make it more enticing for her. Everyone loves to get photos taken at a party and not have to worry about using their phone. It’s also fun to share with everyone afterward to celebrate the good time you had and to keep these memories for years to come!

Always Have Treats

Dessert is my favorite so I knew I wanted to have something fun and easy for people to enjoy. We ended up getting custom “Horderly” cookies made which were a hit! It’s always fun to have a theme or branded party!

Music, Always

Be sure to have music throughout the event. In this case, we had all of our Google Home devices on throughout the house. We also looked up a “BBQ-themed” playlist and it was a hit.

Give A Parting “Thank You” Gift 

Everyone always loves a little something! As professional organizers, we never want to give “stuff” and instead make sure your gift is something intentional or that won’t stick around forever (like a candle or flowers). We usually give some kind of Horderly merch as our gifts so that it’s exciting for the team to wear and an item they will actually use! This time they got caps which have been a team request for a while now!

Overall, our party was so much more enjoyable when we delegated tasks and were able to just enjoy our team’s company! At Horderly, team culture is super important to us, so being able to have our entire team in one place again was super special! 

Comment below with any party-planning questions you may have!