Gate Crash: Tactful Reminders and Contingency Measures

Posted by: partygirl on Friday, March 21st, 2008

Sometimes the biggest obstacles to efficient planning are the guests themselves. Namely, the guests of the guests. It is a planner’s nightmare to see that the estimated number of visitors double or triple in size on the actual party date.

On paper, planning for enough food and giveaways to provide for a set number of people is easy. However, some invitees volunteer to bring at least one or two other friends with them without informing the party planner or party giver. Without prior planning for a solution to this issue, you end up with a crowd and not having enough food for everyone.

Some Tactful Ways to Address the Problem of ‘Gate Crashing’

Gate crashers are people who attend parties without getting an invite. These are usually unexpected guests who know the celebrant somewhat but were not invited. It is tactless for these people to come in a party uninvited, but equally tactless for the party planner to point this out to this people, as they could be friends or relatives of the celebrant that he or he ‘forgot’ to send an invite to.

1. Write the invitation script in such a way that the RSVP line is highlighted. Make sure to emphasize on how many people to bring (i.e. can bring one guest or ‘you and a guest’). Include ‘tickets’ if the celebrant will approve this, such that the one being invited has a gate pass and an extra one for his guest.

2. Prepare for feeding more people than the actual number. For example, you rented out 200 chairs and 200 food plates initially, inform the chair dealer and the caterer to prepare 50 more, just in case.

3. Make all guests (and their guests) sign the guest book, and compare this list to the original guest list so that the celebrant can see the exact number of people he has to pay extra for.