PLANNING A SMALL CORPORATE PARTY

Dear party lovers,

A while back, I had the immense honour of planning a corporate party for some dear friends of mine to celebrate their new Thai Restaurant opening called Midtown Thai. 

This happened almost a year ago, but I have been reminded of the fun time we had as coincidentally, this month we are celebrating its re-opening following the COVID-19 outbreak.

Despite the fact that I have organized other parties before, however, this one I found to be particularly special due to its exotic location (Bangkok), and the wonderful friendship that our family has built with the owners; Savinna and Nueng. But most of all, it was special because I was given the freedom to plan and create the party based on what I considered would make an astonishing impression for the occasion, and of course, for the guests.

The only limit I was given for the Midtown Opening Party was the color code; rose gold, gold and black for most of the details, and gold or white for the dress code. A given detail that I felt was invaluable was also the orchid which symbolizes the national Thai flower. The aim was to match the party decoration with the restaurant style: Elegant and sophisticated Thai. Therefore, with these simple instructions we began the party preparations.

As you may know already from previous posts, we started allocating our ideas, structuring them according to each stage of our “Perfect List,” which is designed to consider everything you need when preparing a party. Our Perfect list includes all the elements one should consider when organizing a party, and covers every possible stage of the party, from the invitation to the good-bye gift or the thank you card to wrap-up the event and leave a pleasant souvenir for the guests. In summary, our “Perfect List” includes: 

1. Invitations, Thank you Cards, tags and labels & other cards
2. Table Decoration / Scenery Decoration
3. Banquet (Party food)
4. Entertainment (Games and Activities)
5. Costumes & Props
6. Party gift bag / Souvenir

For the Midtown Opening Party, we diligently followed this list to tailor all of the ideas following a simple style guide and color palette of rose-gold, gold and black, as well as the orchids, that defined the third and fourth color of burgundy and touches of bright blue for the party decor. The results were the following.

THE PARTY IDEAS

1. MIDTOWN INVITATION 

Usually Invitations are the first point of design that determine the rest of the decoration, so here is where I started. We saved the date on the calendar 24 of May 2019, and Savinna put the PR Araya to work, sending the Save the Date to the media and getting ready to communicate with the guests through any social media means possible. 

Other than the rose gold and black colors, the orchids and the style we pursued, Savinna wanted to include a grid-like background that would somewhat replicate reminder the rose-gold design at the entrance of their restaurant. This was the result:

After completing the invitation, we started working on all of the graphic elements, designing them and organizing the production in our usual factory: the Thai Printing Group.

2. TABLE DECORATION / SCENERY DECORATION

TABLE DECORATION:

The true honouree of this party was the Midtown Thai food, therefore, when deciding on the table decoration, we created a food display table for the party which would remind the guests what the party was celebrating. This food display would be photographed to share on social media, and also acted as a preside to the party. 

In choosing the materials for the table decoration and food display decoration. I started making some forays to the best places in Bangkok to get materials; Chatuchak Market, Chinatown (Sampeng), and the Flower Market. I ended up picking some artificial gold and bright blue flowers from the Chatuchak market, some simple black fabric from Sampeng and beautiful burgundy orchids from the flower market. A few days in advance I had tested out a few flower arrangements for the tables and flower decorations for the food display table with Savinna. We found our favourite combination and noted it down, so we could be prepared for the big day. 

SCENERY DECORATION:

1. FABRIC ORCHID FLOWERS

Here comes my (most) personal input. I had the idea of making paper orchid flowers as a small decoration to hang on the restaurant lamps. I lined them up with silky fabric in white and burgundy and added some gold and light blue final touches for the artificial flowers. The idea was to replicate the look of natural flower arrangements in fabric to decorate the lamps. I made enough to also decorate the backdrop for the photo-call.

We organized a 3 days workshop to make about 150 handmade paper orchid flowers lined with fabric.

2. MIDTOWN PHOTO-CALL – GOLD AND BLACK GEOMETRICAL BACKGROUND WITH A SPECIAL TOUCH

For the party photo-call, we decided to go for a simple and corporate backdrop where it would be easy to recognize the Midtown restaurant logo, which would deem important for any social media communication of the event. However, I wanted to add some of my personal input as well, making a structure made of delicate metal mesh and then decorating it with dozens of fabric orchid flowers in burgundy, gold and bright festive blue. This was the result: 

3. BANQUET (PARTY FOOD) PRESENTATION

The Banquet Presentation was the protagonist of the party. The owners of Midtown Thai; Savinna and Nueg, worked on developing a delicious and delicate menu, then they chose some dishes to present at the party on the table display. For this, we only needed to take into consideration the table decoration, which was already defined, and the menu labels. We decided to go for a minimalist and simple card showing the name of each dish in both Thai and English, then present them along with each plate on the party display table in cute menu card holders that I (also) found in the Chatuchak Market.

4. ENTERTAINMENT

In a small corporate party like the Midtown Thai restaurant opening party, the main entertainment was the food presentation, as well as the intervention of the master of Ceremonies (MC) and VIP people who were invited to the event. Savinna and Nueng prepared the event in a way that the flow of the inauguration and the participation of the special guests who made a speech would engage the guests and create a proud and happy atmosphere for the hard-working owners, as well as keeping them entertained in the party itself of course!

Nevertheless, I wanted to include something small for an extra experience, which ended up being very effective: The Thai photo-booth props. With every party, one learns new things, and in this case, I made the small mistake of not checking with Savinna first, as I accidentally risked some cultural appropriation with certain thai designs, however I would say that this risk ended up being worth it, as I wanted to surprise her!

5. COSTUMES & PROPS

We consider that costumes and props, or party accessories are a must in any party. There is a certain “je ne sais quoi" that cheers the guests up in a particular way when we dress-up and pretend to be another person, it may be that we used to play pretend as kids, and the bittersweet stroll down memory lane and our imagination proves to be delightful, or it may just be that we like to act funny or playful. Therefore, despite the formality of the corporate event, we added the special touch of including the unique idea of designing and preparing a thai photo booth.

We prepared the design of the photo booth props cut-outs, including two thai dancer hats, two thai-style mens hats, one elephant, one orchid flower tiara and a bunch of lips and moustaches. For the display we brought one traditional white parasol in (again!) Chatuchak market, and some low cost thai dancer jewelry from Sampeng-Chinatown, to use as photo accessories. This was the result:

6. PARTY GIFT BAG / SOUVENIR

To wrap-up a party it is a good custom to show gratitude to your guests for sharing this special experience and occasion with each other and with you. For the Midtown Thai Opening Party, Savinna requested that we give out a bottle bag containing a small champagne bottle. Champagne is the owners’ favourite alcoholic drink and they wanted to give this to their guests as an appreciation for their presence and support at the party. The design made for this bottle was elegant and simple, the final touch was a rose-gold satin ribbon and a tag with the logo and a special message from the owners.