Our Studio Party! (Yayy!): I’ll Show You How To Organize Your Next Party Like a Pro!

Did I ever tell you that before moving to Canada I was an entrepreneur in Venezuela? I ran a Marketing agency that organized special events, planned 360 ad campaigns and it was my first baby I ran for almost 4 years. We did a ton of events (weddings, anniversaries, product launches), with a lovely team of ladies I miss the most.

Organizing the studio party gave me ALL the feels, instantly remembering my days as a planner and celebrating a new era of entrepreneurship in my second home, Montreal.
If you’re planning a small gathering soon, I’ll walk you through what we did, so you can plan your next event like a hero with a ton of simple steps that will help you enjoy as much as your guests because you totally deserve it!

THE CHECK-LIST

First things first, right? in any event (small, medium or big) you need to get your notepad and start with a check-list of all the things you need to make it happen. Our check-list was divided into three main ones, adding every single detail:

1. FOOD & DRINKS

• Are you using suppliers?
• Are you cooking everything?

In our case, we opted to call three food masters to help out set up our food stations, and had an adorable pretzel setup with the most incredible pretzels from Bretzel & Compagnie, adorable mini-pastel cupcakes and meringues (that I still need to get some more) from Little Leah’s Kitchen and the yummiest mini food from Simple Gourmet.

In the drinks department, we had a Rose fever thanks to Korkscrewed and my favourite, a Bloody Caesar bar.

2. DECOR & DIY 

Theeee best part, am I right? This celebration was all about colour, happiness and joyful moments. A balloon garland was the number ONE thing we had in mind (and if you need a full tutorial, head to this blog post!). A corner with our very own “3D” pastels tassels (DIY tutorial coming soon) a donut wall and a big colourful table with all the treats we had.

3. GUESTS, INVITES

You need to calculate how many guests you want to invite, seats available and the time frame of the event. The secret? Always invite 20% more people than you can fit in your space, typically, around 70% attend. We had about 45 guests and we divided them between the two studio areas: photo and dining area.  Send the invites at least two weeks before and a reminder 4 days before the event, for any last minute confirmations (yay!)

QUANTITIES, MENU ORGANIZATION

At any event, calculating the right quantity is the ESSENTIAL key to a perfect party. You can calculate about 8 pieces for appetizers and about 4 for mini desserts as an average per guest (hello to my days when I used to plan parties back in the 80’s, HA!). Make sure to arrange the recipes accordingly (keep the cold appetizers in the fridge and serve them 10 minutes before everything starts)

The menu was pretty simple: cute food everyone can enjoy! we excluded peanuts from everything just to be extra cautious (as a mama of a severe allergic little one) and organized everything in stations:

S W E E T

– Popcorn bar with candy-coated popcorn (yum)
– Donut bar and one of the most popular ones
– Candy bar with a ton of little bags filled with surprises
– Dessert bar mini cute cupcakes and mini meringues were a perfect duo

S A L T Y

– Mini crostinis 
– Pretzel bar with different dippings: mustard, Nutella, and sriracha spicy mayo
– Mini salads with smoked salmon
– Mini Caesar bar with tomato, celery and cucumbers skewers

THE SETUP

The day of the event, we did all these last minute tasks:

• clean and assemble all the reusable cups and glasses
• we set the main table with fresh cut oranges, lemons, limes, and fresh flowers
• cut all the fresh flowers and made small arrangements (yay to flowers!) with cold water
• we stoked the two bars (rose and Caesar) with garnishes, fresh ice, and flowers
• to be extremely sure that everything was organized, we personally knocked and notified our studio neighbors about the party, and invited them to cheer a glass with us