Whether you have a small family or a family full of cousins, aunts, uncles, and more, planning a family reunion can be stressful. 

If you’ve been delegated the daunting task of planning and hosting the whole event, it’s important to have a solid plan so it can run successfully with the least amount of stress for you.

You may find yourself at a loss on where to start. Should you get a big venue? Is your backyard enough? What do you need to buy? Should you start a fund? So many questions will arise, but we’ve tackled them all.

At Braid, we want to help you become the family’s best host by giving you some tips on how to collect money, manage, and plan your family reunion.

  • 6 Steps to planning your family reunion
  • Why Braid Money Pools are great for family reunions
  • Gathering contributions from everyone

6 Steps to Planning Your Family Reunion


1. Figure out how many family members will come

  The first thing you need to do is make a list of possible family members that may want to come to the reunion. If this isn’t your first one, it should be easy to get a list from the last event you had. If this is the first annual family reunion, it’s time to make said list.

You can start by reaching out to every family member personally through text, phone, or email. Another option is to create a Facebook event and invite everyone to see who will RSVP. This, of course, could take some time to get responses back. You can also just guess based on family members that are nearby. For example, if you have an aunt that lives in a different country, it may be unlikely she’ll be able to come to the reunion if it’s not planned way ahead of time. Once you know how many people will come, it’s easier to decide where you will have the reunion, how much it may cost, and how much you need to budget for. 



2. Research venues and vendors for pricing

Once you know how many guests are definitely coming to the family reunion, you can start researching venues and vendors to ask for quotes on prices. If you have a big family, you may want to rent a venue, so it’s easier to hold everyone comfortably. You can rent places like banquet halls, bowling alleys, movie theaters, and any location with a “private event” space.

Some vendors and things you may need to research for your family reunion are:
          

  •   Caterers
  •   Entertainment
  •   Decorations
  •   Supplies (utensils, stationery, etc.)

When you’re working with a tight budget or a smaller family, one tip is to find a place that can do it all. For example, some restaurants may have private event spaces that include seating, food, decorations, and even entertainment. If you’re holding your family reunion in your backyard, however, you’ll have to figure out and decide what you want to include to make the event the best it can be. While you may save money on a venue by using someone’s backyard, you may have to deal with additional costs such as tables, chairs, linen, plates, and so much more. 

This will obviously depend on how big your family reunion is and how decorated and “fancy” you want it to be. Sometimes a simple backyard BBQ with paper plates and plastic forks is the perfect reunion for you and your family! Find what works best for you and everyone involved.



3. Delegate tasks to other members

If you’re feeling too stressed handling everything alone, do not fret! Family is always there to help! Braid is great because it’s designed for multiple users, meaning you can have another family member help you manage the pool and collect money from other family members. Any other member you add can:

  • View the pool and check the balance
  • Spend money from the pool using the Braid debit card
  • Track contributions from other members

So if you have a family member you can trust to help with the family reunion, this is a great way to relieve some stress and delegate other tasks to someone else while you focus on the more important aspects of planning the event. Send your family member of choice an invitation link to join the pool to create new admin members. Once they have downloaded Braid, they can accept your invitation and share admin tasks with you.

Aside from using Braid to collect money, you can delegate other tasks to family members, like putting someone else in charge of the decorations, having someone print out invitations and send them out, or even choosing a family member to be the one to pester the others to find out who’s really coming to the party or not!

Ready to set up your first Braid Pool? Click here to get started.


4. Complete budget

Once you have figured out how many people are coming to the event and have done your research on venues, vendors, and supplies, it’s time to complete your budget. Make sure to add extra money to the budget for any accidents or just in case of an emergency. The majority of the time, you will end up going over budget when planning big events, so it’s important to try and plan for that.

5. Choose a venue

Now that you’ve done your research on venues and gotten the quotes you need, you can choose your venue. Focus on finding a space that fits the number of guests coming comfortably, and that can offer extra things to lower your budgeting, for example, if catering is included.

If you’ve decided to have your family reunion in someone’s backyard, great! Now all you need to focus on is spending money on seating, decorations, and of course, every other vendor. 


6. Choose vendors

Some vendors you may want to consider for your family reunion will depend on the size of your event, what the family wants to do, and how important the event is to you and everyone involved.

For example, if you’re a more casual family, you can probably get away with ordering several party pizzas for your backyard event. If you’re looking for a more upscale event, you may want to consider hiring a caterer, some kind of entertainment and buying decorations to really elevate the family reunion. 

How do you get money for a family reunion?

Use Braid Pool Links to help you easily collect money from your family members.

What are Braid Money Pools?

It's a money pool where you can collect, manage, and spend money directly from the pool for your family reunion. Creating a Braid Money Pool takes minutes, and you can start contributing money immediately. 

It’s also a great way to keep the funds for your family reunion separate from your personal accounts. It’s like having a family reunion bank account! 

You can manage the money that is contributed to the pool and the money spent on different things, like decorations, deposits for the venue, and vendors. 

How do I set up a PayPal family reunion?

Braid is easier than using your regular bank account or having to use something like Paypal, which can become a bit disorganized. Unlike Paypal, Braid Pools doesn’t require contributors to sign-up to contribute money. Not to mention, PayPal has shut down its PayPal pools, so you won’t be able to use them for your family reunion payments online.

Gathering Contributions

Sometimes, it can be awkward to go to each family member and start collecting money for the family reunion, not to mention super stressful. Braid makes it so easy to ask for contributions by just sharing the Pool Link to your pool with everyone and including the details needed in the description of your pool. 

Contributing your own money to start the fund

Using the Braid app, you can contribute money to your own pool whenever you want, creating a nice fund to start spending on all your family reunion needs.

If you’re worried about maintenance or monthly fees, you’ll be happy to know that your pool is completely free. (Only contributors who add money via credit cards on the Pool Link are charged a 3% fee by Braid.) 

How much should each family member pay for a family reunion?

Figuring out how much each family member should pay for the reunion will depend on a few different factors. One really simple way to do this is to total the entire budget for the event and divide it by how many guests there are.

For example, if the budget was $1000 and there were ten guests, each family member could pay $100. This could be a money saver for some members, but could also be a financial burden for others depending on their situation.

You can also ask each family member to contribute what they can so there’s less pressure on the ones who don’t have a lot of funds to spare, and the ones with more funds could add a bit more. If the is money in the budget you still need to be covered, you can contribute the remaining balance yourself. 

All of the funds collected from family will stay in the pool until you need to use it, so you don’t need to worry about transferring the funds, And if you get the Braid debit card, you’ll be spending the funds on decorations in no time!

Host your next family reunion (and make it an annual thing!) with Braid Money Pools. You’ll love the convenience of having all the funds in one spot and being able to keep track of contributions and spending easily. Don’t be surprised when you become the designated family reunion planner for years to come!