Party Planning Tips

News

Apr 14

You may have noticed that we enjoy celebrating at Tala—it’s become something central to us through the years, but it all happened pretty naturally. All of us owners enjoy throwing get-togethers and going all-out for things like friends’ birthdays or holiday parties or whatever else happens. When we opened Tala, causes for celebration just kind of came out of the woodwork (like our original roastery launch party, our first cafe birthday party, etc.).

As our company has embraced parties and causes for celebration, my personal agenda has been riddled with a similar history, becoming the go-to party planner for most birthdays, engagement parties, baby showers, etc. that happen in our friend group. I’m here to share some of my top tips for making party planning fun, easy, and successful!

*Keith, Stefan, and myself at our 2021 Tala-days party. We had a mid-century Christmas theme with a mystery twist.*

1. Define a purpose and a theme

Every get-together has a reason. The purpose of a Friendsgiving might be to get a friend group together to share a meal, or it could be more focused on creating a Thanksgiving experience for someone specific who doesn’t have family to celebrate with. The purpose of a baby shower may be to support and celebrate birthing parents as they enter a new stage of life. A 40th birthday party might be about celebrating four wonderful decades of life focused on the birthday person, while a one-year-old’s birthday party might be more about photo-ops and the desires of the parents.

Once you have a purpose, it may feel helpful to identify a theme. Themes can range from sophisticated to quirky to goofy and everything in between. Your theme might just be a color palate and a setting: a dinner party with a gold and beige color palate. Or it might be a robust theme: a 90s themed costume party. Your purpose and your theme are scaffolding for the rest of your party.

2. Create a mood board

I find that starting with a mood board helps you visualize what will work and what won’t. It also can be extremely helpful when you’re coordinating with others, so that everyone remains focused on one specific vision. When creating mood boards, I just use Pinterest to collect ideas for the party. I often make a board with several categories: food, activities, and then aesthetics. I like to make sure aesthetics has its own board and use that to cast the vision.

3. plan activities

Everyone thinks to plan activities for a kids party, but when it comes to adult parties we tend to just focus on the food, and drinks—I think that’s a huge shame! Adults want games, too. Not every party needs activities, but I think most benefit from them. Before you write this one off, let me assure you they don’t all have to be like wedding shower activities. You can get super creative here. As a note, I always also try to get a mix of group activities and some solo activities especially if you are accommodating multiple friend groups. Let me give you some examples of different activities I’ve done:

Themed charades. Play a game of charades in the theme of your party. Animal charades for a kid’s zoo-themed party, for instance. For Keith’s 30th birthday party, I planned Keith-themed charades, where each prompt was something he specifically did (like roasting coffee, doing a deadlift, drinking a protein shake, etc.).
Custom bingo. This takes a little effort in preparation but can be a really fun way to get people to mingle. With a group of friends or people with common interests, you can use inside jokes or common jargon. Like at a Tala party, we might have a square that says, “Someone brags about their latte art,” or “Someone mentions their favorite regular."
Trivia. There are so many ways to do trivia: solo printed multiple-choice trivia, team custom jeopardy, or team timed trivia games. There’s lots to choose from as either main events of your get-together or supplemental activities.
Custom crosswords or other word games. These are fun solo activities that can give the odd-person-out something to do while they wait for a familiar face to arrive. It can also be a fun and easy way to work in the theme you’ve chosen, whether focused on one individual, one holiday, or any other theme!

4. Make a party agenda

Sometimes we get so tied up in everything it takes to begin the party, that we forget to plan for the actual event. Making a plan—even if it’s loose—will help you ensure you’ve thought of the details and that your guests have stuff to do! I always leave 15-30 minutes at the beginning to account for people arriving, mingling, etc. before anything else. Then consider anything else like the timing to serve a meal, the length of any group activities, plenty of transition time between activities, cutting cake or singing happy birthday, organized group photos, etc. If it isn’t in the plan, it may get lost in the shuffle!

At a recent baby shower, I set up a coffee station but dressed it up by bringing honey in a jar and providing sugar cubes verus using sugar packets to match the sophisticated vibe of the shower. Things like this can go a long way for making things feel cohesive and special without actually being any more difficult on the host.

5. plan food and drinks in advance

My go-to advice on food and drinks: embrace your theme. A well-themed food option can take something relatively boring and turn it into the life of the party. For our Tala Kalikimaka staff holiday party last year, I embraced the tiki vibes with catered sushi and poke bowls, while adding several on-theme appetizers to the mix to save on costs. For instance, I gutted a pineapple and served pineapple pico de gallo insider the hollowed pineapple with a large tray of chips. Is it just pico and chips? Yes. But does it suddenly become 10x more amazing? Also yes.

Another great way to make food and drinks easier is to cater your party. My go-to arrangement is to cater the main stuff and supplement with my own additions (I don’t need to cater a garden salad, but I can certainly cater pork chops). Depending on your party’s vibe, you could also consider transferring the catered food to your own serving things in order to keep the aesthetic charm. If you’re having a morning party, you can take advantage of Tala’s catering options to have an easy but delicious assortment of hot coffee, cold brew, and draft lattes (more on that later!).

Consider making your party a pot-luck to share the load! This can actually work perfectly with a theme and can make for a much easier party for the host. Ryan and his wife Abby used to throw an annual Pork-Off, where a few brave souls would compete on the best-cooked pork and everyone else would bring sides to share. This put the cooking as the theme of the party while also giving the hosts the time to focus on all the other details of the party. You could also do a cookie-baking competition, or invite everyone to bring a dish with a prompt (your guilty-pleasure food, your favorite holiday dish, your favorite family recipe, etc.).

Dress your food and drinks to make them even easier. Everyone has different priorities, but I tend to feel like simple food dressed up is better than fancy food dressed down. I might opt for cheaper or easier items that I can stage in a fun or pretty way, rather than trying to execute a culinary masterpiece on a mass scale. This depends a lot on the nature of your party and your own preferences. My go-to for a crowd is to make a charcuterie board because it feels luxurious, even if you’re not using the most expensive or fanciest stuff. Similarly, you can throw some garnishes on some plastic cups with a simple punch and it feels suddenly fancy. On the other hand, if you’re having a dinner party it might be more important that your food tastes amazing so you may want to stick with something simple that you are confident in, and dress the table up more than the food. Whatever the case, just remember to keep things in a realistic balance for what feels good for you.

Embrace a limited menu. Having a morning party? Offer coffee and a fun bagel bar. Having an evening party? Schedule it for right after dinner and have a cocktail and dessert party. The more limited, the less complicated, and sometimes that means the more successful overall.

*This is the floor plan set-up for my own recent baby shower, thrown by my friends and family but, of course, hosted at the Libertyville Cafe.*

6. make a set-up plan

Along with an agenda, I’d encourage a set-up plan. This is especially important when it comes to a place you have for limited time. We’ve been renting our cafe for private events almost since the beginning, and over the years I’ve realized how intergral a set-up plan is in a successful event. Almost without exception, people universally under-estimate how long it will take them to set up. Knowing ahead of time exactly where everything will be and approximately how long it will take to set up is key!

If you rent one of our cafe spaces for a private event, we’ll work with you to develop a floor plan of your event so that you can be prepared with exactly where you will put food, drinks, gifts, dessert, etc.

This is also a great way to delegate to those offering help! If you have a printed or sketched out idea of where everything goes, you can easily accept help from others while also executing your grand vision.

When creating your set-up plan, I recommend assuming that guests will begin arriving about ten minutes early. I am surprised again and again when this happens because it seems like the ultimate party faux pas to me, but it is apparently a rule of human nature as it happens without fail every time. This early arrival really cuts in to your last-minute decorating or setting up, so I try my best to plan accordingly—but let’s be real I’m usually running around like a chicken with her head cut off up until the last second (we all have room to grow here!).

A few examples

Stefan’s 30th birthday party

Purpose: To celebrate Stefan’s milestone birthday with close friends.

Theme: Evening garden dinner party.

Venue: Our backyard.

Food: Pork shoulder, smashed garlic potatoes, roasted carrots, garden salad, dinner rolls, etc.

Activities: Just dinner and conversation.

Details: We set up a long banquet table in the backyard and enjoyed a candlelight dinner with close friends.

Friend’s baby shower

Purpose: To celebrate and equip new parents to welcome home a new baby!

Theme: Safari.

Venue: Their apartment complex’ community room.

Food: Adult/traditional charctuerie board and a kids charcuterie board version.

Activities: Traditional baby shower games and some custom safari-themed coloring pages, crosswords, etc.

Details: We transformed the community space into a fun jungle with balloon arches with vines and plants, little safari animals, etc.

2020 Tala-days party

Purpose: To celebrate the hard work of our staff through the holiday season with an epic party!

Theme: Christmas at the Cabin.

Venue: Tala Highwood Cafe.

Food: Catered comfort foods, plus a build-your-own trail mix bar.

Activities: Everyone earned boyscout-esque badges by completing different activities. We had a goofy holiday twist on most survival activities. The person who earned the most badges throughout the evening won a prize.

Details: Since we always decorate for the holidays, our parties are already themed and the vibes are robust. We like to have really activity-heavy parties that get everyone laughing and bonding in no time.

Whatever the reason for your celebration, the important part is that you celebrate! Make sure that the joy of the occasion isn’t over-shadowed by the stress of planning.

We can help!

Catering with Tala

We cater hot coffee, cold brew, and draft lattes for parties of all shapes and sizes. This is an excellent way to take something off your plate while not compromising on quality or aesthetics—which (let’s face it), is important when we’re throwing parties! Inquire now.

Event space rental

Each of our cafes are available for rent after-hours for your special occasions. You’ll work one-on-one with our Event Coordinator to select the location, set-up, type of coffee service, and other details in order to throw the best party with the least trouble. We’ve worked with clients hosting events of all types:

Birthday parties
Baby showers
Wedding showers
Weddings (yes—that really happened!)
Graduation parties
Corporate events
Holiday parties
And much more!

Events With Tala

Mark your calendars!

Speaking of fun events, mark your calendars for our 2025 Birthday Bash, celebrating eight years of Tala! Come to the Libertyville Roastery & Cafe June 7-8 for a weekend packed with activities, freebies, prizes, demos, and pop-ups! You won’t want to miss it. Check out our events calendar for more.