Where Do I Start?

What is most important for any successful event whether it is for a large or small scale is COMMUNICATION. The best way is to firstly decide on who is going to be involved in helping to organized. The simplest way is to start a secret Facebook group or watsapp groupchat to form your committee.
Think about what kind of a surprise party you want to plan for. The list of things you can do is limited only by your imagination. Don’t worry about execution just yet. Ask yourself the following questions and consider the answers when planning the party.

Planning
Before you begin, decide if the guest of honor is the right candidate. There are some who are control freaks and simply hates the idea and when it’s near their special day, just goes on thinking everyone is being mean and lack planning.
Once decision has been made to throw a top secret surprised party, it’s essential then to have one member of the team to go on taking the lead and becomes the person-in-charge. He/she plays a vital role in planning, co-coordinating, delegating tasks and finally, executing. This team leader does not have to be close to the birthday girl/boy but is required to work closely with those who know the person well so the outcome will be intimate. Saying that, the team leader needs to have a clear vision and be responsible, have some ideas of co-coordinating events and decorating would helped a get deal.

Preparations
Depending on the size of the dinner party will determined how far back you will need to start looking into planning and preparations. Everybody will need to also agree and decide if this party is :-

• Theme : Going to include a dinner party theme?

• Guests : The tricky bit of any surprise party is deciding on the number of paxs. Sketch out your guest list so you have a good idea of numbers, which is always useful. Then when it comes to inviting people you have to be explicit about the fact that it’s a surprise. The number one way surprise parties become just parties is when someone lets the secret slip. Suggest forfeits and a fate worse than death to anyone who gives the game away. There is no point pussy-footing around.

• Venue : So, who is going to finance it? Will it be a spouse or partner giving a small intimate or large ballroom party or the entire group of friends/families to come up with finance collectively? If everybody wants to contribute to dinner and gifts, decide if it is going to be a pot-luck surprise party at home or if it is at a restaurant, find out on how much is everybody willing to spend and agree to contribute on the amount will determine the type of dinner party and location to host the birthday surprise. At the end of the day, only the guest of honor should be receiving a pleasant surprised and not the rest of the group having a terrible shock hoping this will be their last party involved.

• To-Do-Checklist : Now that everybody has agreed on the finance and location, it’s finally time to come up with a to-do-checklist.

• Assigned Lieutenants : No one person can come up with a successful event on his/her own. This is why as a team leader; he/she will start delegating tasks. An important note is to assigned roles and responsibilities based on the persons’ strength and check if he/she agrees to take on the assignment in the first place.

How to Keep a Surprise?
At this point it’s all about covert operations. That’s a military term and you need to be militaristic about this if it’s going to work. Plan and execute, being well organised might seem dull, but it’ll make for a far more splendid occasion than something that has been pieced together at the last minute. Plus serious and detailed planning is the only way you’re going to be able to keep the birthday bod in the dark.

Now, there is another option regarding keeping it a secret. It might not be quite so spectacular, but you can inform the lucky birthday person that you’re throwing them a party, but keep everything else secret. This way the person makes the date free and the logistics of keeping them unsuspecting and out of the way don’t matter, but the thrill of finding out what you’ve organised for them is still super-exciting. But you can be creative and leading closer to the date of the surprised event, you can create a story and mentioned something came up and decided to call off. Then delegate a member of the team to play along, contacting the birthday candidate suggesting for a simple one-on-one dinner like in the case of Evi Aza, who recently had her surprised birthday dinner planned out for her and thought she was going to have simple chicken rice at a food court.

On the Actual Day ..
So far, all of your hard work has been paid off. But actual days are always the toughest. All ideas are in place and now it’s time for execution!

Obviously where the party is will reflect the procedure. If it’s in their home, you’ll need a plan to get them out of it. If it’s at a venue they never go to, you’ll need to come up with a viable excuse to get them there. Some tips and ideas for those who are hosting their event in a restaurant or hotel, you may like to seek permission from the owner or management whether you could use some of their props and decorative or if they have lovely candies or chocolates they could include as a complimentary so that your event will be extra special. DoubleTree Hotel in Ampang, Kuala Lumpur was certainly corporative and helpful, with very good customer services everybody gather around for the big surprised and the staff team even sang a birthday song towards the end.

Consider joining to become a hotel member such as with the Hilton group at Hilton Premium Club-Double Tree by Hilton, Kuala Lumpur (+603 2172 7521 or hpcdoubletree-kl@clubhotel.com) OR Hilton Premium Club KL (KL2), Kuala Lumpur (+603 2070 3212) premiumclub-kl2@clubhotel.com.

They offer wonderful discount vouchers that could allow you to host a ‘night-to-remember’ dinner parties without it being astronomical.