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It’s true that wedding receptions are our bread and butter here at Trigg Banquet Center. However, there are all kinds of other occasions that deserve to be celebrated to their fullest with an event at a banquet center. Custom banquets are great ways to mark any special event, whether it’s for friends, family, coworkers, or teammates. We’re here to help you make that happen.
First, we’ll detail all the different ways you can celebrate with custom banquets. Then, we’ll wrap up with some tips on how to make the most of your event. Let’s jump into it.
Anniversaries
Milestone wedding anniversaries deserve to be celebrated in style. Some people work with the banquet center to surprise the couple, while others are aware of what they’re walking into on the day of the party. Some couples even incorporate a vow renewal ceremony into the festivities! They can really be whatever you’re dreaming of.
Custom banquets are great for anniversary parties because you can add as many personal touches as you want. Incorporating pictures from over the years is an obvious and lovely decoration choice, and people will love getting to reminisce. Plus, typical wedding venues obviously make perfect spots for anniversary parties.
Another common way to customize a banquet for an anniversary party is to incorporate elements from the actual wedding into the celebration. Maybe you can work with the caterer to recreate a mini version of the wedding cake, or maybe you can track down some of the actual elements of the big day: Invitations, the cake topper, or anything else that might have stood the test of time. Wedding photos are, of course, a must.
Birthdays
Whether it’s a coming-of-age party like a quinceañera or a milestone birthday marking the onset of the golden years, a banquet center is the place to be to celebrate any trip around the sun.
You can customize the space to feel as formal or as casual as the birthday person wants it to be. No shame in planning your own party, but if you’re putting together an event to celebrate a loved one rather than yourself, make sure you keep their wishes top of mind.
You’ll need a space for presents, enough food for all of your guests (don’t forget the cake!) and some kind of entertainment.
And if it’s a surprise party, make sure nobody spills the beans. There are lots of extra things to plan for if it’s a surprise — how is the birthday person getting to the banquet center, how will you coordinate with other planners, what will your cover story be? All of those kinds of questions are vital to ensuring the success of a surprise birthday party at a banquet center.
Sports Banquets
After a long season, it’s time to celebrate everyone’s accomplishments and hard work.
Custom banquets are perfect for everything from bowling to baseball and every sport in between. Treat your team to a nice dinner and then give out awards based on each player’s strengths. These kinds of events vary widely in terms of how formal they are. So, you can customize your sports banquet to fit the personalities of your players and the demands of the night.
Most custom sports banquets are seated affairs with a dinner followed by a speech or two and the handing out of awards. You could have the banquet center decorated in your team’s colors, or you could go for a more subtle look. If your players are very young, you might want to add in some activities to keep them busy. Whatever you decide, gathering to celebrate the season is a great way to get closure and send off any players who won’t be joining you next year.
Custom banquets allow you to create the best experience for your team, one they’ll treasure for a long time to come.
Workplace Events
When you need to treat your colleagues or employees to a special night, custom banquets are an obvious choice. From the yearly holiday party to a Chamber of Commerce luncheon, a banquet center can be a perfect venue for work events.
But these aren’t the only corporate events that are good fits for custom banquets. Many years of faithful service deserve a proper sendoff. So, consider crafting custom banquets for any retirement parties your office throws.
Reunions
Actually getting all the people you want to see in one banquet center is a difficult task, but that’s exactly what reunions are all about. Whether it’s your high school class, your extended family, or any other group that’s usually more spread out than you’d like, reunions are definitely a perfect reason to throw a big party.
Reunions are like anniversaries and birthdays in that they’re good opportunities to reminisce on times gone by. Having pictures of the last times you all got together around the banquet hall can be a nice touch, and name tags are often appreciated — most people look pretty different than they did in high school!
Family reunions are also great candidates for custom banquets. Maybe you have enough space to host Thanksgiving dinner at home, but for the whole extended family, you’re going to need a bigger room. Banquet centers can accommodate the whole clan, giving you space to make those precious family memories.
Fundraisers
Trying to come up with enough money to power your favorite organizations and activities can get tedious. You’ve got the standard cookie sales and coupon books, but those are hardly what most would consider fun times.
Instead, consider creating custom banquets with your fundraisers. Events like music trivia nights or murder mystery dinners can be a combination of both event types. Even if it’s just selling tickets to a nice dinner, your benefactors are likely to enjoy an evening of good company and great food. Other events that put the fun in fundraiser include mouse races and tournaments for games like darts, washers, and bags.
Trigg Banquet Center has hosted events for first responders, those in serving in the military, and many other great causes. Treat your supporters to a fun evening while also raising enough funds to sustain your important work. It’s a win for everybody involved, and custom banquets can make that happen.
Bereavement Dinners
Planning for these types of events is never a pleasant task. Getting a banquet center that can help with the heavy lifting can give you more opportunities to be with your loved ones during this difficult period.
At the end of the day, you want a celebration of life that pays a proper tribute to the person you loved, and custom banquets can do just that. They can give you all a chance to gather in bereavement and remembrance, bringing closure to a life well lived.
Other Private Parties
We couldn’t possibly list all of the reasons you might ever want to get a big group of your favorite people together. So, just know that any other occasions you can dream up for custom banquets can be accommodated.
Banquet centers are great go-tos for parties because they are so versatile. As you’ve seen, you can transform the space to be exactly what you need it to be. So, if you’re planning a welcome home party, a monthly meeting for an organization you run, or even a formal event like prom, you should definitely consider banquet centers for the venue.
Gathering for food and fellowship can be the best way to mark all kinds of events, or for no other reason than that you want to have a good time with the people you care about.
5 Tips for Custom Banquets
Now that we’ve covered the different reasons you might be looking to put custom banquets together, we wanted to leave you with a few tips for how to make those parties the best ever. Read on for our best advice.
Have a theme.
Not all custom banquets need to have a theme, but it can certainly help with planning the rest of the event. Having a central idea to wrap all of the different details back to can be useful for idea generation and making sure the event feels cohesive. Plus, coming up with a fun theme can be exciting for the guests of honor, if it’s that kind of celebration.
Of course, the theme can always just be simple, elegant, and clean. There’s no penalty for not having one. Themes can just add some sparkle to the event, or they can play into the interests of the person of honor or reflect what you’re there to celebrate, if it’s something like a sports banquet.
Don’t neglect the food.
Sure, the guests and the location are important, but we all know the food is the star of the show. Make sure the food, drinks, and dessert are all top-notch. The banquet center might have in-house catering services, or you might need to find an outside vendor. Whatever the case, make sure the food you’re serving your guests is going to be something to talk about — in a good way!
That includes making sure everyone at the function can partake. Think about the dietary needs of your guests, if you’re aware of them. And if not, it’s a good idea to have at least some vegetarian options available.
Make it personal.
Anybody can throw custom banquets. Differentiate your event from the others by making it personal to you. How you do this will largely depend on what kind of event you’re throwing in the banquet center. If it’s something personal already, like a birthday party or an anniversary celebration, then you can put photos of the honored guests around, or even make a video montage of memories from over the years.
If it’s a more organization-focused event, though, like a fundraiser or end-of-season banquet, this might be a little more tricky. You can decorate with the team’s colors, include favorite memories from the season, or otherwise try to incorporate the spirit of the group into the event.
Remember it all too well.
Including a backdrop for pictures or putting an entire photo booth, complete with props, in the banquet center can make your event one your guests won’t soon forget. You can also send your guests home with some favors so that they can think extra well of the event in hindsight.
Hiring a professional photographer would be the ultimate way to capture the party, but that’s not usually in the budget for custom banquets. Instead, encourage guests to take their own photos with the props we previously talked about. Or, you can leave disposable cameras out for them to use and then get the pictures developed.
Keep the guests entertained.
At more casual functions, catching up with the other guests is probably entertainment enough. But at more formal ones, having some entertainment is one way to really wow your guests.
This is not to say that big, splashy entertainment is a must at all custom banquets, mind you. Some events already have the entertainment baked in. A murder mystery dinner fundraiser at a banquet center, for example, is plenty thrilling without anything extra going on. And if your event is a more somber affair, you don’t want to cheapen it by treating it like a real party — but we didn’t have to tell you that.
So, don’t overwhelm your guests, but make sure they can have a good time. A band, DJ, or even just a good playlist can all keep your guests bopping along all night.
Plan your own custom banquets!
Now, you’re ready to contact a banquet center near you and start a conversation about your next function. We’ve given you lots of occasions where a custom banquet would be appropriate, and we’ve also offered up our best tips on how to make the most of the event. Planning a big function is no simple task, and you’re going to need all the help you can get.
If you’re in St. Charles county and want a place to start, look no further than our offerings here at Trigg Banquet Center.
Weddings are our specialty, but we’re fully equipped to help you make a special event out of whatever you’ve got going on — a fundraiser, a work party, a birthday, the end of a season, or anything else. We want to help you make your banquets something really special, and we look forward to hearing from you!