How to Plan an Outdoor Party

Video Transcript

"So you're planning an outdoor party and you're wondering where to start. I'm Jessica Miesinger, and I'm going to give you some helpful tips and ideas on, how to plan an outdoor party. First off all, you want to make sure you have sun protection for all your guest, such as these fun straw hats, sun glasses, also make sure you have little bottles of sunscreen around too for the guest, because they usually don't carry that on them, and you want to prevent people from getting sunburn, and then, you know, you can provide that stuff, or just make a little note that it is an outdoor party and they need to make sure they're covered. And for decorations, there's a lot of fun ideas you can do. For your center pieces, you can do something like these little lanterns, put citronella candles in them, and they actually work as a centerpiece, but they also ward off the bugs as well, you can do the tikki torches, like we have back here, you can place those throughout the backyard as well, and they ward off the bugs and they also provide lighting at night. If you're having the party at night, you can also, (or even during the day) you can put up these fun Asian lanterns and put lights, or just have them hanging from the trees, just to provide some fun atmosphere. You can also do these fun little table runners, and place those about, you can handout lace to your guests, or incorporate them into your centerpieces. For games, go ahead and stick with your traditional, like horseshoes, if you have a big backyard, you can always play volleyball, you can throw the football around, play flag football, and invite all the guests to play, you know, the guys, the girls, and the kids, and have a bunch of fun. For your menu, keep it simple, you can do something tropical, you can put little shrimp cocktails in these shot glasses and pass them around to the guests, or have them on a table. For your drinks, make sure you have plenty of bottled water, you can do some specialty cocktails, such as like, passion fruit martinis, have some beer on hand, and wine coolers, you can do punches, such as lemonade and fruit punch for the kids. And then for your entertainment, there's a couple of different ideas you can do too. If you have a little bit money to play with, you can hire a steel drummer, or a guitarist, or you can just do something as simple as you iPod and just have it in a speaker dock. So those are just some ideas on how to play an outdoor party for your next event."