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Dr. Paul Pearsall once hypothesized, “Our most basic instinct is not for survival, but for family. Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead our daily life too often as if we take our family for granted.” Often it’s this very idea that inspires someone to start planning a reunion. The first step in organizing a family event is to determine a guest list and who will be invited. Sometimes this requires phoning a number of relatives for updated addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. This must be where to start planning a family reunion because you will then know who to ask for innovative ideas for locations, dates, food, activities, games, gifts and resources.

The best starting point for planning a reunion is to send a general letter out to family members, letting them know that a reunion is in the works. In this letter, you can ask for volunteers, include possible dates, propose a reunion type, ask for suggestions on a general location and inquire for family reunion ideas regarding activities or theme. As with any invitation, politely request a timely response, so your letter doesn’t get shuffled away with other paperwork. You may want to set up a personalized family reunion website at www.myfamily.com to send with the letter and keep tech-savvy relatives up-to-date with the planning procedures.

Once you get other family members involved and send out a survey letter, your next step of planning a reunion will be to select the date. What good is a family reunion if no one can attend? Look over the survey poll results and try to find the date that is conducive to the most people. Many families select a holiday like Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter or a special family milestone. If you plan on turning this into an annual gathering, your best bet is to pick a date and keep it the same each year. You’ll also need to consider how long your gathering will last — just a few hours, a weekend or even an entire week. If you have a lot of family members coming in from afar, then you may want to make their family reunion vacation last more than just an afternoon. It’s important that you understand you can’t possibly please everyone, so try to choose a date that will accommodate the largest number of kin.

Planning a reunion can get complicated when you get to budgeting. While a family reunion cruise or stay in a villa may be within range for you, it will exclude family members with lower incomes. You may also find that even the “simplest” of gatherings — the one at someone’s home — can turn into a huge expense bill once you add up all the food and the drinks. Hopefully you sent out those surveys and got a sense of what people could afford. There are many ways to budget a less elaborate party. Some hosts charge each family member $10 or $20 to cover the family reunion location cost or ask that everyone “bring a dish.” There are many intricacies when planning a family reunion, but you’ll find the end result is worth the effort.

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