From Donna Pilato,
Your Guide to Entertaining.
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This tip was submitted by Diane Dwyer.

As a corporate trade show and event planner, many of my friends ask me for tips on planning their personal parties and events. I "help" with everything from weddings, to retirement parties to children's birthdays. The one piece of advice I think guarantees success is to create an event timeline.

From setup to cleanup, you should write down everything that has to happen in order by time. This will help you see where you may need a hand, such as stringing the pinata; prompt you to add items you may have forgotten (matches for candles on the cake or a microphone for the hearfelt speech at a parent's retirement); and show you that picking up the cake at 2:00 while also picking up balloons at 2:15 is not going to work. Success or disaster is all in the details! Your event agenda will also be a great tool onsite to hand to volunteers and to keep everyone, even the planner, on track and on schedule.

Thanks for the tip Diane!

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