At-home DNA tests are terrific, but if you really want to know where you come from, there’s no better — or more fun — way than to attend a family reunion.
If you’d like to put together a get-together for your family, these planning tips and family reunion ideas can inspire you to gather your family for a fantastic family event.
What Is a Family Reunion?
Put simply, a family reunion is a celebration — a chance for far-flung relatives to get together and re-connect long-cherished family ties and relationships. Some family reunions are a single party held on a weekend day or evening, while others can be days- or week-long gatherings with multiple events.
When Is the Right Time to Host a Family Reunion?
You can have a family reunion at any time! For some families, the reunion is an annual event, with rotating locations and hosting duties. Family members look forward to their invitation each year and plan summer vacations around the reunion.
Other families host a get-together when there’s a significant event, like a birth, death, or graduation, or as a way to celebrate milestone birthdays (70, 75, 80, etc.) for family patriarchs and matriarchs.
When Should We Start Planning a Family Reunion?
That will depend, in large part, on the size of your event and how far family members will have to travel to attend. If you’re all still in the same area, a few weeks is plenty of time. But if guests will be traveling from around the world, give at least a few months for people to make their travel arrangements.
Where Should We Hold Our Family Reunion?
Family reunions can be held at an individual’s home, at a hall, a hotel, or at some other public space — even on cruise ships!
A major factor in where you host a reunion is the size of the group you’re bringing together. If it’s a small gathering, a home is a good option. If you’re having a large family gathering, you may be eligible for group discounts for locations and travel.
Who Should Host a Family reunion?
Most families have a social butterfly or two, people who are naturals at party planning, and they tend to stay in touch with relatives far and near. Let these family members take the lead in arranging your event.
Who Should Pay for a Family Reunion?
The most common way to organize and pay for a family reunion is to have a single person act as the organizer, coordinating locations, menus, activities, and souvenirs (like t-shirts), and to have the entire family chip in to fund the event.
Some hosts ask those who will be attending to send their contribution to the cost with the RSVP; other hosts might organize online fundraisers and allow family members to contribute what they can afford before they create the reunion’s budget.
Top Family Reunion Ideas
Family reunions are a wonderful opportunity to celebrate your family history, to share stories, to renew friendships, and to give a new generation the chance to create memories together. In addition to sharing food, many family reunions feature party games. And still, more use the opportunity to gather stories and family history for the future.
You could arrange a story-telling station, with a video camera for people to tell their favorite family memories or a station with paper and pens for them to write their favorite stories. These can be gathered into a single book or video that you share after the event or posted to a family website that holds all your stories and will make planning and spreading the news of your next reunion even easier.
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Family reunions are so much fun. Depending on the size of your family, you could have your family reunion at a restaurant or a community center.
The warmer months are better for a family reunion at someone’s home because you can have some or all of the activities outdoors. That keeps everyone from being crowded inside.
One person doesn’t have to do all of the planning. With a planning committee, each person is responsible for a particular task. For example, one person is responsible for finding a venue. Another is in charge of activities or games. Someone else sends out the invitations and collects RSVPs. And so on.
Great article. I love how family reunions have evolved over time. I personally love destination family reunion trips.
We had big family reunions when I was a kid. Now, they are smaller, but still fun. It’s hard when families are spread allover the country, but even a small local family reunion is still worth it.