How to Plan a Successful Thanksgiving Dinner
If you find yourself tasked with planning a Thanksgiving Day dinner party for more than a small family, the logistics can seem overwhelming at first, especially to a novice event planner. Fear not, however, as there are a few things that you can do to give yourself a higher chance of knocking it out of the park.
First things first: Decide what your food source will be!
Are you planning on cooking part of or all of the Thanksgiving meal? If so, your primary concern will be planning out how to prepare each dish to both be fresh and on time for your dinner plans. If you cook a dish too soon, it may get stale or dry by the time it gets eaten. Conversely, if you start cooking too late, or something goes wrong, you may not have time to finish and your plans could fall apart before they come to fruition. That is why it is often times easier (And not that much more expensive) to have your Thanksgiving meal catered, especially for larger groups. The only problem with this is that Thanksgiving is one of the busiest days for caterers, so you will need to give plenty of advance notice when you place your order.
Location, location, location!
Venue choice is going to be another significant portion of your consideration for planning your Thanksgiving dinner. How many people are going to attend? What type of atmosphere are you looking for? What is your budget like? Is travel a concern for your guests? What other activities besides eating are you planning on engaging your group in? These questions must all be answered, and they should be answered as early as possible so that you have as many options as possible for your planned event. Since Thanksgiving is one of the largest and most celebrated holidays in the USA, you will be fighting a lot of other event planners for venue booking, so start as soon as you can!
