How to Host a Successful and Safe Family Gathering Begins with Gathering Everyone’s Decades-past Pictures to Share at the Reunion
OK. The date and location have been chosen, you have many volunteers for various committees, and the save-the-date cards have gone out. Before you work on the invitations, start planning for the five elements below that will help make your family reunion successful:
Food
Like any large event with high expectations (weddings, Thanksgiving, July 4th picnic), the food can make or break your family reunion. Find out what allergies and dietary restrictions need to be accommodated before you start planning the menu with your committee (if it’s potluck), the caterer (if it’s not) or the restaurant or resort that is hosting your family.
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Favors
You don’t have to design, order, and hand out matching t-shirts to everyone who attends, but it is a nice idea to create a favor that is tied into the reunion. A softcover book that contains the family tree, a photo of families from each branch, and their mailing address and phone numbers would be nice. You could also create a photo book using archived family photos.
Family story presentations
Invite particularly good storytellers in your family to share their stories (or those of parents or grandparents) during an “official” part of the reunion. If this is a large family reunion, it will help the various branches get to know each other better. If it’s a small reunion, it will simply be a lot of fun to hear new or “untold” stories. Digitize all the guest’s pictures to show during the event.
ACTIVITIES
No matter how long your reunion is or where you’re meeting, plan activities everyone can participate in. If this is the first time the extended family will be meeting, it’s probably a good idea to plan an ice-breaker during the first evening’s cocktail party.
If your family is gathering in a specific city or town, highlight a local map with parks, walking trails, coffee shops, and other points of interest. This will come in useful during downtime, for early risers, and for anyone from out of town.
Professional photographer
Everyone will be so busy during the reunion it will be hard to capture all the big and small moments that make up the event. Hire a local photographer who has experience shooting large gatherings, especially weddings. Everyone will love viewing the photos online post-event.
BONUS: In the invitation, ask everyone to get their childhood, family vacation, and other nostalgic photos digitized and then create a presentation on a TV during the gathering. Ask everyone to select their favorite songs so it’s engaging and gets everyone involved. Add the songs to your family movie. Even create a brief trailer to send out before the reunion to get everyone excited and begin the reminiscing.
We saw these wonderful questions by RootsTech to engage and help identify your family history. Provided by Maegan Kasteler:
This list of RootsTech questions should be thought provoking and open-ended. Be cautious, however, that you don’t get too attached to your questions. Let the conversation ebb and flow as naturally as possible.
To give you a jumpstart compiling your own list of questions, here is our curated list of suggested questions:
- What do you know about the day you were born?
- What was it like living where you grew up?
- What weekly rituals or traditions did your family have?
- What chores, if any, did you have around the home growing up?
- What was your schooling like?
- What would you and your friends do to have fun?
- What was dating like when you were young?
- What was it like living (where your relative lived) during (historic events, such as war, 9/11/2001, a specific political event, a natural disaster, and so on)?
- How did your family resolve familial conflicts?
- Were you ever involved in any accidents? What happened?
- Where was your first job, and what did you do?
- What were your hobbies? Is there anything you picked up when you were young that you still enjoy today?
- Did your family have any pets? What kind? How many? What were their names?
- How and when did you meet your significant other?
- What was your wedding day like?
- Do you remember any weird or crazy or wonderful gifts you received at your wedding?
- When did you know you wanted to have kids?
- How did you find out from or tell your significant other that you were going to be parents?
- What was early married life like? What struggles did you face?
- Have you been on any memorable vacations? Where did you go? What made them so memorable?
