Making Sure Your Event Goes Smoothly

Planning an event, whether it's a wedding, a birthday bash, a corporate function, a book launch or even a wake can be a highly stressful experience and there's an awful lot that can go wrong. Of course you'll be having a large range of people interacting who have never met before, and this instantly presents the opportunity for arguments and personality clashes. As the only ‘common ground' you will likely be talked about a lot and you're going to be the person blamed when people find they dislike the person sitting next to them. Furthermore you're going to be the person everyone is trying to talk to, and the person everyone thinks is rude for not spending more time with them…
Then of course things could go wrong. People might not like the food, their might not be enough space, and you might have forgotten the vegetarian option. People might not find the way there or they might not be dressed correctly for the occasion.
So how can you make sure that your nightmares aren't realised and you can enjoy a great function and all the credit that goes with it? Well the main thing to consider is planning - and the more planning you do the more you can be assured that things aren't going to go up in smoke.
First of all you should set a date for your event as far in advance as possible and send out invitations as early as you can. The earlier you send out invitations the more people will be able to come (which will avoid the function being ‘dead' which must top the list of nightmares) as they won't have prior engagements booked. Furthermore, by having your list of guests early on you can start doing other things like planning seating arrangements and ensuring that you have enough space for your guests. Despite how useful Facebook is for organising events and sending invitations you should make sure that you still send physical invitations - not only does it show more effort, but people are also more likely to RSVP and see it as more of a binding contract.
Before you can send the invitations however you will also need to book a venue. This must be somewhere you have visited yourself in person as pictures really can't do justice for the place. You also need to make sure that the staff there can accommodate your plans and a little more in case people bring guests. Ideally the venue should be able to hold more than your entire guest list and all of their plus ones - even if you don't think everyone will be able to make it.
As soon as you have numbers you then need to get orders for meals and make sure that your venue can again accommodate your wishes. Ask them to make a few extras of everything on the menu as people are sure to change their minds and forget what they ordered and extras are bound to show up too.
When it comes to arranging seating this is something that will require a lot of thought. Try to put people together who are likely to get on, but without keeping people to their comfortable ‘cliques' (the best events are those that introduce new people to each other). Try to spread the ‘talkative' types out to make every table lively and ensure that people who will struggle have at least one 'buddy' to look after them.