HELP!....arranging village hall party please

Food is a good place to start! What are the restrictions on the hall e.g. are there cooking facilities you can use? Does it all need to be cold stuff? Then think budget-wise. You could go down a variety of routes depending. Caterers would obviously be expensive but easy. You could buy platters etc from somewhere upmarket e.g. M&S where you order them or Iceland etc. How much stuff would you be willing to make? Stuff like pasta salad can be made in large quantities quite cheaply but you would need time and possibly fridge space to store it. Other things to consider are will you provide alcohol or is there a license to sell it? Does the hall have enough tables, chairs etc for what you want. How much will you decorate? Sure there is loads more to think about too!

I organised a surprise 30th for my OH in December. I got a lot of inspiration from looking at pinterest and google images for decor - especially as she has a phobia of balloons! Decorations are cheap if you get them on ebay - I'd go with millions of fairy lights (lighting can really change a room)

oh and those coloured paper lampshade globe things ...

You can also make things from crepe paper - huge pompoms and things

PS ... Good luck and congratulations!!

First off balloons 50 for £1 in poundland (if you just want basic multicolored)

ebay/amazon can be great for cheap things, in a hall things like bunting and lanterns could look nice

check out cheap shops never write off poundland/pound world/home bargains etc... home bargains does booze pretty cheep

guestbooks are cool, some modern trends in this area - what about a message box?

you get (or make) a nice box with a slit and people post message cards that can then be put in an album or scrap book

food would be worth looking at local caterers... maybe ask food vans or ice cream men for something interesting (or you can hire popcorn/candy floss machines on ebay etc...)

charity shops can be cute if you go for a mismatched theme and are often very cheap

Ebay are amazing for little favors... for Christmas I got 100 charm bracelet charms for £2 as just little gifts for the children at school

examples:

Hello!

We had a village hall reception, so here's a few things I thought of:

Drink - if you are providing this for your guests yourself at no charge then you don't need a licence, or you can arrange a mobile cash bar at a very low price to take the hassle out of it (we did a combination of both - we provided all the daytime drinks and went to a cash bar in the evening). If providing it yourself, you can hire glasses for free from Sainsbury's or Waitrose and if you think you'll spend more than £250 then consider a run to Calais - if you spend at least that much they will pay for your ferry travel and you get more for your money (the Malbec we put on the tables is three times as much in Waitrose as it is in France, even though it's not a French wine!)

Food - party food options as mentioned by others above but also see what local suppliers do in your area. We had a Fish & Chip van in the evening and the advantage was it didn't need any setting up on our behalf (they just drove up and parked beside the hall) and they brought all the bits to go with it - cutlery, napkins, condiments etc. Party suppliers do all the cheese tower / fruit tower / hot dog stand / popcorn machine etc if you want something different and not have the hassle of doing your own food.

Entertainment - you have a DJ and that may be all you need but are you going to do any speeches? First dance? Our venue had a small hall that we set up as a bit of a playroom with our DIY photobooth, pick and mix table, guest message wall - instead of a guestbook, we hung plain bunting and people wrote their messages on there. We also had one of those cartoon posters to colour in and write messages on.

Decorations - we didn't go for balloons but if you do, bear in mind that the helium is the expensive part and they need to be set up fresh just before guests arrive or they will wilt. There are endless things to say about décor - google 'village hall wedding' or look on Pinterest to see if anything catches your eye.

Good luck!

I know it wasn't a wedding, but we planned my 30th birthday party in a local social club and there was a local event place that provided a DJ, 10 sets of table balloons, a balloon arch, a banner and 100 invites for around £200, maybe one of your local party shops may offer a similar service (and they delivered it all too) and I managed to find a local caterer for 100 people for less than £4 a head, that was including hot food and service. We were lucky as it was a halloween party we managed to get a lot of the decorations from the poundshop.

As for how you want to decorate it, it depends on what you are going for is it more of an informal party (so to speak) or do you want a wedding reception?

So many great thoughts and ideas here...thank you all....I have lots of enquiries to make now! Thanks you!