Family Reunion Ideas For Your Special Gathering
How often do you, your immediate family, and your extended family get the opportunity to get together? While holidays allow some of the family to get together, there’s a lot of stress around the holidays and it’s hard to get the opportunity to relax with those aunts, uncles, and cousins you rarely get to see. Of course, social media makes it easier to get in touch, but it can’t replace the experience of being face to face with those you love most!
That is why family reunions are so important! It’s a stress-free occasion to gather everyone together, eat some food, catch up, and meet new members of the family like new spouses and new babies! It’s a time to celebrate victories like new jobs and graduations, and it’s a time to remember people that aren’t always there.
So if you’re hosting a family reunion, here are some ideas to make it memorable and enjoyable!
Make Serving Simple with Food Bars
When you’re serving food to dozens of people with a variety of tastes, it’s easiest to let individuals do as much of it themselves as possible. Here are some popular “bars” to let your loved ones customize their meals as much as possible:
- Pasta Bar: Provide a few types of pasta, a few different sauces, and meatballs and grilled chicken, and let them build their own pasta bowls. Serve with breadsticks and bowls of salad for a full meal!
- Taco Bar: Provide tortillas, seasoned chicken and beef, and dishes of all the fixings like lettuce, cheese, sour cream, diced tomatoes, olives, and more so your guests can create epic tacos and taco salads.
- Baked Potato Bar: With a tray of big baking potatoes, let your guests top their spuds with things like barbecued pulled pork, bacon, ham, cheese, steamed broccoli, and of course butter and sour cream.
Make it a Potluck
Now’s the best time to get Aunt Ruth’s recipe for macaroni and cheese or Uncle Levi’s beer brats by making the event a potluck! Not only does this save time and energy on you, the host, but it’s a great way to share those old family recipes. Ask each relative who’s making a dish to type up and print out copies of the recipe (or use note cards) so anyone in the family can get a copy of it. This is a great way to create a family cookbook that can be shared and added to for generations! Need some inspiration for a dish? Check out these easy last-minute recipes!
Activities for All Ages and Abilities
Family reunions are about getting everyone together, and that means having activities for everyone of all ages and abilities. Set up ring toss, horseshoes, or cornhole sets for active play, but to get the laughs going, try these fun games:
- Family Trivia – Find out fun facts about the family and make it into a fun family game, such as “Name the town where great-great Grandma Jane was born” or what kind of animal did Uncle Pat sneak into the
- Two Truths and a Lie – Divide into two teams: Everyone takes a turn making three statements about themselves with two statements being true and one being a lie. The other team has to guess which one is a lie, and if they get it right, they get a point. The team with the most points wins!
- Butter Sculpture – Provide sticks of butter and give everyone 10 minutes to sculpt an animal, and the most accurate one wins! Get specific by choosing the home team’s mascot, old family pet, or let everyone sculpt whatever animal they wish (no worms or snakes!) and the judge tries to guess!
Capture the Memories
No matter what you serve, what you play, or what you do, the important thing is to capture these memories. That’s why it’s a great idea to rent a photo booth and let the family members take fun, happy pictures, or hire a photographer to get candid shots of the event. Not only do you want to have photographic evidence of Grandma Laura’s butter bear, you want to have the smiles, the laughs, and the good times preserved!
If you’re having a family reunion, contact Mag-nificent Photo Experiences to make your party memorable. Not only do we have professional photographers available to get gorgeous pictures of the event, we also have photo booths and green screens to let you and your family stage your own shots! All photos are available for immediate print and can be customized with a family reunion theme!
With our instant photo technology, you’ll get your photos in moments on a commemorative magnet you can customize with a decorative border or frame or in a ready to frame picture that will be a perfect addition to your wall or photo album. Share the pictures immediately and upload them to any social media platform with our Mag-nificent mobile app.
With Mag-nificent, your memories will be captured and shared in a way that is just as unique as your family!
