Great Summer Parties: 22 Useful Tips to Make Your Party the Hit of the Season

It’s time for a big summer party. Maybe you’re planning a big outdoor event, like a family reunion, garden wedding, or major birthday party. Or perhaps you’ve decided on the spur of the moment to invite a few friends over for a small gathering. Here are some helpful tips to turn your average summer party into a real blast.

1. Instead of balloons, hang inflatable beach balls.

2. Give each of your guests a small battery-powered personal fan that you can get at the dollar store. It is a practical detail for the party that will come in handy if it is very hot.

3. No pool? Host a sprinkler party. Tell your guests to bring their bathing suits to run through the sprinkler. Provide squirt guns and water balloons for added entertainment.

4. Rain in the forecast? Have a picnic indoors. Push furniture to one side, place a checkered or plaid tablecloth on the floor, serve fried chicken, sandwiches, and potato salad.

5. Use a beach bucket to store plastic utensils or napkins at your summer party. The plastic shovel is a novelty serving spoon.

6. Keep white Christmas lights on hand all year long. They look great hanging around the patio, deck, trees, or around the table or entryway inside the house.

7. Try to keep much more ice on hand than you think you’ll need. And make sure you have plenty of drinks, especially frozen drinks and shakes. Summer parties are the perfect time to try new recipes in the blender.

8. Use a wheelbarrow full of ice. Add cans and bottles of your favorite beverages for a portable outdoor cooler.

9. Host a luau-themed party. Decorate with grass skirts, plastic flower leis, etc. from a story of party supplies. Spread seashells on the table. Hang colored lanterns. Play Hawaiian music in the background. Don’t forget the pineapple and macadamia nuts.

10. If you don’t have a backyard, throw your summer party at the park, the beach, or even the zoo.

11. Give each of your guests a dollar-store beach bucket as a party favor filled with summer goodies like sunscreen, flip-flops, and a novel to read in the summer. Add a professionally or homemade personalized bookmark inside the novel thanking your guests for coming to the party.

12. At night, light candles to set the mood and citronella candles to scare away insects.

13. If you’re hosting a pool or beach party, be sure to find a guest who will volunteer as a designated lifeguard and is willing to give their full attention to watching children in the water.

14. Have an ice cream party. Provide a selection of ice cream and sorbet flavors and let your guests add their own sundaes and fresh fruit toppings.

15. Have extra sunscreen on display and available for any of your guests who may need it.

16. If you’re barbecuing, ask your guests to bring the salads and garnishes.

17. Have Christmas in July (or August). Put up your fiber optic or pre-lit tree, play Christmas music, serve cookies.

18. Have a Mexican fiesta, complete with your own tacos, salsa and chips (try some fruit dips) and a piñata.

19. Some outdoor activities kids might enjoy at a party include a scavenger hunt, blowing giant bubbles, throwing water balloons, catching magnetic fish in a wading pool, ring toss in a wading pool, croquet, horseshoes, badminton , face painting, spinning art, hide and seek.

20. Serve fresh fruit in season in hallowed melon or pineapple halves.

21. Take lots of photos at your summer party. Email some of the best ones to all the guests who attended. Better yet, have photo magnets custom made with a group photo or one of you and your family with a message thanking people for coming to the party. Then mail them as a great keepsake for a special occasion.

22. Don’t forget to toast some marshmallows!