How To Become The Ultimate Party Planner [Printable Planner]

Are you SO ready to party this season?! Whether it’s a holiday party, seasonal potluck, birthdays, anniversaries, and so on, The Ultimate Party Planner for the Well-Prepared Woman printable planner will help women throughout the year keep all the important details of party planning organized in a cute format of checklists, calendars, and ideas. Because keeping track of your party plans is important and often a lifesaver!

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Write It Down

Maybe you’re like me and get super excited about planning parties! Or maybe the whole idea causes you anxiety or drives ya bonkers. Either way, it never fails you are suddenly assailed with an onslaught of ideas! “We could do this! And we could do this! And this!”  And before you know it, you’re trying to organize the whole event in your head. 

You obviously want to throw a great party. And maybe have wondered how YOU could throw the ultimate party or even be the Ultimate Party Planner yourself. As someone who’s thrown a party for just about everything, my advice? Write it down. And while I’m guilty of scratching notes anywhere and everywhere, I truly do my best when I have all my party plans organized together. That’s why I created The Ultimate Party Planner for the Well-Prepared Woman.

Buy Your Ultimate Party Planner for the Well-Prepared Woman

In The Ultimate Party Planner for the Well-Prepared Woman, you’ll find everything you need from the simplest Party Outline/Checklist outlining the basic tasks in event planning to very detailed printables like a Party Itinerary or Timelines and Cooking Schedules. One of the first pages helps you pick a theme.

Pick a Theme to Jot into Your Ultimate Party Planner

Whenever we start discussing a party or event, my first question is “What’s the theme?!” Some people look at me funny. I’ve even been asked, “Does EVERY party need a theme?” Ummmm, yes! The short and long of it is that themes make a party or event cohesive. They help everything coordinate from the invitations to the tablescapes to the menu. 

And let me tell you, when you want your guests to feel like they’ve had a wonderful experience, that cohesion and coordination are everything. It moves the guests smoothly through the party like the whole thing was created just for them. What a wonderful feeling!

“But isn’t [Christmas, anniversary, birthday] the theme?” I’ve heard it many times. Sort of. That’s the specific reason for the celebration. Themes (and subthemes) dial the party in. They tell you HOW you are going to celebrate.

Add a SubTheme

What’s a subtheme? A subtheme is going to dial your party planning in juuuust a little more. An example of a Halloween party would look like this. You’ve decided to have a Halloween party. You’d love for everything to be “Witchy”. To take it a step even further (that subtheme), you could do a Victorian Witch theme versus a Spooky Witch theme or a Green Witch theme or a Bright Colors-Green, Plum, and Orange- Witch theme. See how far you can dial it in?! 

One more example: My youngest daughter’s birthday is on the 22nd, just after Winter Solstice and before Christmas. I decided on a winter theme for her first birthday and took it one step further to a Winter One-derland theme. We decorated with snowflakes-One of a kind and gave out hot cocoa mix party favors. A garland of 12 snowflakes was strung across the kitchen with a picture from each month of her first year attached to them.

Decide on a Date, Time, and Venue

Now that you know HOW you want to celebrate, you can more easily decide on when and where to celebrate. Conversely, if you only have one option of where to celebrate, your theme choices may reflect the location. I wouldn’t plan a Winter One-derland Party in a hotel pool area or a trampoline place. (I have planned birthday parties for both of those however with coordinating themes). 

This could take a minute though if you need to secure a venue and work with their schedule. This should be one of your first priorities. And depending on the size of your party and the popularity of the venue, it should be considered anywhere from 2 to 12 months in advance. 

Create a Guest List in your ultimate party planner

Who do you want to invite?! In your very own personal party planner, you’ll find not only a Guest List but also includes space for the guests’ contact info and a column to mark whether or not they have RSVP’d. When creating your Guest List, consider the nature and temperament of your possible guests. Will they mingle well together or will the setup of the party keep that from being a problem?

At a certain age, we started having “Family” and “Friends” birthday events because having all the kids and grandparents at the same event wasn’t as enjoyable for the guests. It means having two events for the same occasion but maybe one is a little more low-key than the other, so it’s worth it, in the end, to keep everyone comfortable.

Design an Invitation

You can’t have the Ultimate Party without inviting the guests. Some people think they are old-fashioned, but really people enjoy getting them and putting them on display. With your specific theme in mind, you have lots of options for invitations! And now with technology, you can pair the invitation with a Facebook Group invite or a group text invite to allow for discussion.

Printable and Digital Invites

Canva.com is one of the best places to design invitations. They offer a free account if you’re not using the software very often or a Pro version if you’re on it every day like me. I use it for everything. But I started using it for invitations and party fliers. You can choose the size and orientation of your invite and create Facebook Group banners. In a pinch, I created the invitation like a flier, download the final document image to my phone, and then texted the image as the invite.

Create a Menu

Are you a foodie and love to cook for your guests?! Or do you keep a list of the best caterers in town?! Many parties and events are also potlucks which are so helpful to the hostess and bring in a variety of flavors. You can request to bring a particular dish, something to coordinate with your main course, or whatever they want. It’s helpful to have a list of suggestions ready for those that ask. They feel more helpful with one less decision and you get to keep the menu on par with the theme.

Whichever way you’d like to plan your menu, there’s a printable for each! In fact, you can print off the overall Menu, pages to keep Recipes, a Shopping List, a Cooking Schedule, Vendor Contacts, and Drinks! So, no matter what kind of party you’re planning, you’re totally covered. Again, you can snap the pages into a larger party planner binder or hang any of the sheets up on your fridge to jot down notes as you go. Another option is to print them off and hand them to a good friend willing to help.

Write out your shopping list

Pretty self-explanatory here. But there’s nothing like a cute printout to dump your list on! It brightens up your shopping 🙂

Pick Party Games and Activities

They aren’t just for kids! The Ultimate Party Planner adds some form of entertainment. It could be a simple card game between dinner and dessert or a cute scavenger hunt for guests to play throughout the event. Some showers have done away with games because people find them embarrassing or taboo. In this case, you could have cute cards where guests write down advice for the guest of honor, wine tasting or beer tasting, recipe cards, or a jar to fill with suggestions for dates, mother-daughter/son activities, travel ideas, and so on. 

The ultimate party planner makes parties memorable

If you’re following all of the steps above, your party will no doubt be memorable! From the moment guests receive your invites until they walk out the door they will have a wonderful experience. But if you’re still worried, take a few more steps to lock it in. 

Party Favors

Often kids’ birthday party sets come with party favors included. Sweet! Check that off the list. Buuuut, you could really have a ton of fun with this detail too. The level of creativity in party favors is through the roof these days. Imagine all the fun packages (cute tiny bottles, boxes, baskets, cellophane, tins, jars, and of course gift bags) and all the fun things you can put into them (yummies, flowers, seeds, drinks, jewelry, bath goodies and more). So go ahead, Pinterest that shiiit.

Send Thank-You Notes

Do you need to send a thank you note? This is a question often asked as they are considered outdate by some. According to Readers Digest though, there are times you must send a thank you note, such as when you receive a gift, after being a houseguest, or after a dinner party. For twenty years or more I’ve been referring to the book Finding the Right Words by J. Beverly Daniel

A few of my favorites are:

• Your thoughtfulness really put sunshine in my day
• Thank you from the bottom of my heart
• So thoughtful of you to think of us
• Thank you for the wonderful dinner. Being with you was as delicious as the food!
• Every time I look at the gift you gave me [or insert gift], I think fondly of you.  You’re a sweetheart.

Once again, Canva.com is a great place to create the perfect thank-you notes. Match them up with your invites and make those lasting memories.

Send a Picture Collage

If you started your event on Facebook or through a group text invite, wrap up the party with a link to a picture collage or curate a cute group of the party pics and add them to the group. Invite your guests to do the same. If not, you can generate a QR code to add to your thank-you notes. 

Get Your Ultimate Party Planner for the Well-Prepared Woman

Hopefully, you’re feeling super stoked about planning your next big event! It’s so much more fun when you’re feeling organized and confident in your planning. You can check off your lists, delegate tasks with all the necessary details, and keep track of all of your ideas.

Now that you know all that goes into party planning and being the Ultimate Party Planner, let me wrap up all that goes into your printable planner! I’m so excited! When you download your planner, you’ll have access to 33 pages including:

Party Planning Tips

List of Party Dates/Events

Birthday List

Theme Ideas

Party Outline/Checklist

Brainstorming

Timelines

Guest List

Decorations

Tablescapes

Menu

Recipes

Shopping Lists

Cooking Schedule

Vendor Contact Info

Drinks

Music

Games and Activities

Outfits

Wish List

Gifts Received List

Thank You Notes

Hostess Gift Ideas

Party Favors

Cleaning List

Month Planner

Week Planner

Day Planner

Budget

Link to Canva for invitations and fliers

You’re set! Click “Let’s Party” below to shop your Ultimate Planner for the Well-Prepared Woman before your next party.