Nonprofit, Social, and Wedding Events: Understanding the Emotional Side of Events
Nonprofit Events
Nonprofit events are primarily for the purpose of fundraising for a nonprofit agency and its programs.
The key with nonprofit events is for the planner to understand that your business is for-profit. While catering and convention service businesses are quite benevolent and can donate some of their profits, they must cover food and labor costs.
Nonprofit groups can include a wide range of organizations to include but not limited to:
Medical: research and development, patient assistance, health care centers, specialized education
Education: sororities, fraternities, alumni, affinity school programs
Community Outreach: human rights groups, animal advocacy groups, programs for the youth, elderly, disadvantaged, homeless, and the mentally, physically, and monetarily challenged
Religious: from local churches to national programs
Media: all kinds of reader- and listener-supported broadcast modes
Sports: from youth programs to professional organizations
Tourism: including the performing and visual arts, museums, aquariums, and so on
When these organizations hold their gala events they are predictably looking for donations of food, beverage, auction items, and volunteer services to attract high profile and affluent guests. Characteristically these events are evening dinner galas that include awards and recognition of community supporters. The higher the profile of the person being recognized, the more likely their peers or coworkers are to buy full tables to the event and spend money on auction items.
However, there are other community-based events that the masses can participate in such as walks, fairs, raffles, and sport outings to name a few. The primary focus currently remains on high-end dinner events.
Mainstream fundraising galas are typically three-course dinners with the first course often preset to allow for shorter meal service and more time for the programming. If timing is critical the dessert course can be preset as well. Most often table wine service is offered and the bar beverage is hosted by the planner. Food and beverage pricing is usually heavily negotiated during the sales and contract phase. The majority of nonprofits are certified tax exempt within the states where they reside.
When servicing nonprofit events, the CCSM can be tasked with working not just with one or two event planners but rather an entire committee of volunteers. It is important to establish a line of reporting to the final decision-maker and minimize the ordering around of the CCSM by volunteers.
This can be achieved best by experience with events of this nature and asking the questions in the early planning process. Questions like:
Who will we be working with?
Who is the decision-maker?
Who is authorized to approve financial commitments?
Can you provide a list of volunteers and their duties?
Are meals to be provided for volunteers, vendors, and entertainment?
Can we all meet for an onsite pre-event meeting to discuss expectations?
The actual event’s success will in large part depend on the preplanning communicated on banquet event orders (BEOs). This must include all donated components and their pricing such as corkage and labor fees, all complimentary items such as votive table candles, waived bartender fees, upgraded linen, and so on.
Additionally, a detailed schedule of events should be made listing everything from setup timing, speaking and entertainment rehearsals, official opening time of event, food service timing, planner’s items to be placed on tables such as table numbers and stand, name cards, menu cards, programs, and gifts. Service items such as wine glasses, preset food items, napkin fold style, linen colors for under- and overlays rentals such as chairs, charger plates, special tables, and sponsor name cards must be clearly specified.
Event planning items unique to nonprofit galas with silent and live auctions are:
Planner’s event theme and overall objectives
Guest group profile
Impact on the hotel such as early check-in, valet parking, and after-event plans at hotel outlets
The setup of silent auction tables including locations, size, linen, décor, timing of setup and tear-down
Dedicated areas and equipment needed for registration, auction check-out, Wi-Fi or hardline Internet for credit card terminals, volunteer needs, access to loading dock before and after event, outbound shipping for large items
Entertainment and green room requirements
Security provided by planner for auction items and audiovisual and stage sets the day or night prior
Detailed floor plan diagram with table numbers, noted VIP seating, special meal requests and silent auction area; this may also include fire marshal approved plans
Vendors
Budgets are set early and will need to be constant monitoring and communicated to the planner
Following the event, surveys for planner satisfaction should be evaluated and the supreme measurement of your planner’s happiness is annual repeat business.
What Happens to Surplus Perishable Food?
Do you feel guilty about the amount of food that gets discarded at the end of an event?
Today, programs have been developed around the country to collect and serve the food to the less fortunate in our society. Previously, hotels and restaurants had been afraid of liability issues and lawsuits if food were mishandled after leaving the kitchen and food poisoning resulted.
But, in 1996, The Good Samaritan Act1 was created to prevent good food from being wasted and to shield donors from any liability. The Good Samaritan Act protects donors that donate wholesome food in good faith from civil and criminal liability.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has information on what kinds of food can be donated, where to donate, and liability information.
There are rules:
Food that has previously been served to the public cannot be donated. That would include food sitting out on a buffet.
Surplus food prepared in the kitchen, that was not set out or served can be donated.
Refrigerated food must be kept at or below 40°F and frozen food must be kept at or below 0°F
Before you choose a food bank2:
Be sure the drivers are trained to handle food safely
Be sure trucks are refrigerated
Weddings
Great wedding planners are amazing human beings! They have the patience to handle a year full of couples and their family emotions and still deliver an exquisite once-in-a-lifetime event. These planners and their onsite teams are more than worth the financial investment made in them by the planner. A wise CCSM will work hand-in-hand with them and give up control of planning to them, thus being better able to concentrate on providing exceptional hotel service to the planner and especially the planners. Wedding planners may be guests under your roof, but treat them like family and they will increase your productivity and revenue!
Destination weddings are hot right now. And, Las Vegas is a prime destination.
Just about every hotel in Las Vegas has a wedding chapel and wedding packages. The Venetian in Las Vegas offers an Italian experience. You can get married in a gondola with a serenading gondolier on the Grand Canal or on the Wedding Bridge in St. Marks Square. Caesars Palace has a variety of wedding locations on their property, including classic and garden settings. Bellagio offers terrazza and courtyard ceremonies. Even the Circus Circus Hotel & Casino has a wedding chapel, which would be great if you are marrying a clown.
When people choose a destination they dive into the culture more than anything else. They have specific food and beverage that represents that particular destination as well as specialty entertainment. Also, people are choosing destinations where there are many things for their guests to do over the celebration of their wedding. Destination weddings are designed to keep people entertained, and, of course, tends to minimize the guest count which ultimately helps the couple save money.
When you work weddings, you either love them or run the other direction from them from fear of the emotional and sensitivity they bring to an otherwise conventional food and beverage event.
Of any event you can manage, weddings and wedding receptions are the most volatile. Planning these events, you see the best, worst, and most confusing of behaviors in people—from the bride and the groom, to the parents and step-parents, siblings, in-laws, and so on. This can include couples arguing in front of you, parents and children disagreeing on finances or number of guests or “whose wedding is this anyway?” disputes.
Divorced parents of one or both halves of the couple make it more complicated and bring up feelings of when they married each other. This doesn’t sit well with their present spouse, often causing awkward public moments.
Successful wedding coordination takes patience, and the love of love. Very few couples focus on the ceremony as much as they do on the reception and party aspect of the wedding events. When this happens, couples tend to demonstrate altar anxiety and actually shake in fear, especially the partner that didn’t have much to do with the planning process.
Couples who display love and respect toward each other with joint planning duties have fun at their wedding. They have time to spend with their family and friends at their wedding occasion. Brides and grooms who tries to control the guests’ experience rarely are relaxed and comfortable at their own celebration.
Couples attempting to control every movement of their guests will not be able to enjoy the spontaneity of what loved ones bring to the moment. This tends to happen when couples decide for the guests where to sit and who to sit with, what and when they can eat, drink, dance, and so on.
Your single most important focus in helping couples plan wedding events should be to listen to their wishes and reacting to them. Start this development process with asking questions about every detail.
Regardless of how many wedding events you have done professionally, and how you think you know everything about weddings, every couple is unique and should be paid attention to as if they were your first and only planner!
The next steps are bringing to the attention of brides and grooms (or grooms and grooms or brides and brides) what is the typical schedule of events and asking them what they would like their schedule to be. Ask questions such as: What song do you want the grand entrance to be? Who is announced at the grand entrance—just the couple or the entire wedding party? Is the first dance after the grand entrance, or after dinner? Is the Champagne toast given before the dinner to ease the nerves of those giving speeches, or after dinner when the risk of intoxication is higher?
Planning wedding ceremonies and receptions includes being knowledgeable about the following:
Religious and ethnic beliefs, days of week and times of the day appropriate to have ceremonies, including receptions with and food and any beverage restrictions. For example, traditional Jewish weddings are on Sundays, East Indian wedding events may last three or more days and may involve riding large animals.
Interracial, Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Transgender (LBGT), interfaith, nonfirst-time weddings, and those of persons with physical limitations may require additional knowledge on your part.
Who is actually planning the wedding? Current trends are widespread when it comes to who is planning and paying for the wedding events.
Are blended families involved in the events, such as stepchildren, honoring parents, and remembering those who passed on?
Will any surprises need to be included in your timeline, such as an added event planned by one half of the couple for the other or parents for the couple, or guests’ involvement? Often these are last-minute items that you must remain calm through and incorporate if you have a good sense the planner is in agreement with.
Additionally, wedding events take more coordination in the collecting and returning of planner’s décor, program, and memorabilia items—such as personalized printed agendas, giveaways, table favors, photo booth accessories, cake toppers, cake cutters, name place cards, money card boxes, toasting glasses, and so on. It’s always appropriate to advise brides and grooms wearing white to avoiding serving red wine.
Finally, wedding planners become attached to you and your knowledge. They want you to be there for most of their events. Often they will associate you with the beginning of their married life and want to stay in touch including celebration of their anniversaries. While these couples do not typically become repeat planners they will recommend you highly to others and try to reciprocate your hard work with testimonials and referrals. This is the ultimate compliment you can receive!
Table Linens
Once guests are seated, the top of the table is the view for the rest of the meal. Linens play an important role in creating the ambiance of a meal. Whether you use standard hotel linen, or rent upscale specialty linens, you should consider the color and texture that they add.
Linens for the table include:
Table cloths
Napkins
Overlays and runners
Skirting
Chair covers and sashes
Color
Color is important as it sets the mood. Not only is it necessary to stay on top of the current trends in special event planning, but one of the first questions you should ask any planner is what colors will play a key role to the success of their function. And, as equally important, what colors are inappropriate, for example, a Chinese New Year party should never incorporate the color white! (White is the funeral color in China.)
Pantone3 is the leading authority on color, and each Fall and Spring they announce the following season’s color trends. Other color websites include: My Personal Artist,4 The Perfect Palate Blog,5 and Style Me Pretty.6
Type of Cloth
Standard hotel linen is usually Momie cloth, which is a cotton or polyester blend. There are many specialty linen companies that rent damask, satin, brocade, organza, lame, and even velvet linens. They also offer a variety of prints and patterns to fit every theme.
They can ship them from anywhere in the United States.
Table Linen Sizes
A 90-inch tablecloth for a 72-inch table (Round of 10), is recommended as it provides a 9-inch drop all around which should just graze the top of the chair. Floor length cloths for this size table would be 132 inches across. While floor length tablecloths look elegant, far too often the setup crew has pushed the chairs in too far, so the cloth does not fall straight. This ruins the effect that was intended by spending the extra money.
Party Rental Linens7 has an excellent size selection chart that tells you what size tablecloths to use for the various sizes of tables, depending on how far you want the drop. A 9-inch drop would just graze the top of the chairs.
BBJ Linen8 has a virtual design center on its website, where you can mix and match colors, patterns and styles of table linens. And, Creative Coverings9 has excellent trend information.
Napkin folds can also set the tone of the event. Avoid napkins fanned out of drinking glasses. Lint can fall into the glass, and there is more handling of the glass, onto which guests place their lips. The Napkin Folding Guide10 has many great folds with instructions.
Reception Food
Many receptions precede a dinner and are a way for guests to meet and mingle prior to sitting down at their tables.
Some receptions do not precede a dinner, are held during standard dinner hours, and are intended to take the place of dinner. Food should be heavier at these events because some guests will make it their dinner. You should offer a complete balance of food type, color, temperature, preparation methods, and so forth, to suit every taste. As this type of reception normally extends for a longer period of time than a predinner reception, people will in effect be consuming the equivalent of dinner, so sufficient backup food and beverage supplies must be available to prevent running out.
When planners order trays and bottles, they own the products and are allowed to use the leftovers for another event, or send them to a hospitality suite. When they order per-person, the leftovers belong to the hotel because planners are not buying a quantity of food or beverage, they are purchasing assurance that every guest will have something to eat and drink. With per-person, they pay to avoid running out; they don’t actually purchase a set amount of food or beverage. The middle ground for the planner is to ask the CCSM to keep the food and beverage coming, and to charge for actual consumption. While they don’t know upfront what their final cost will be, at least they won’t run out.
The most important information in deciding how much food to order is the history of the group: Who are they? Why are they here? A pretty good determination can be made based on previous years. If this is a new group, or the history is not available, then consider the demographics of the guests.
As a general rule, guests will eat about six to seven hors d’oeuvres during the first hour. Guests will generally eat more during the first hour of a reception, but this depends on whether they are blue-collar, white-collar, or pink-collar (demographics).
White-collar workers are business types who are categorized by wearing suits and white shirts. Blue-collar workers are characterized as those who wear uniforms or work attire other than suits. Pink-collar workers are females in the workforce. Each group will tend to eat a certain way. It is safe to assume that a group of typical truck drivers would eat more (and differently) than a group of typical secretaries.
Here is a chart with some general guidelines that will help you estimate the amount of food to order for your group (Table 9.1).
For receptions with no dinner following, you should anticipate needing about 10 to 14 pieces per person. If there are more females than males in the group you can trend toward ordering 10 pieces, but if the group composition is the other way around, you should go for 14 pieces. Depending on the group, you should also consider ordering a carving station with beef, turkey, ham, or salmon.
For receptions with dinner following, you should allow for about six to eight pieces per person.
Table 9.1 Estimating Consumption
Type of reception |
Type of eaters |
No. of hors d’oeuvres per person |
2 hours or less with dinner following |
Light |
3–4 pieces |
Moderate |
5–7 pieces |
|
Heavy |
8+ pieces |
|
2 hours or less with no dinner |
Light |
6–8 pieces |
Moderate |
10–12 pieces |
|
Heavy |
12+ pieces |
|
2–3 hours with no dinner |
Light |
8–10 pieces |
Moderate |
10-12 pieces |
|
Heavy |
16+ pieces |
The selection of foods offered should include more cold items than hot ones. You should also have a crudités selection available. Food that is served should have a broad appeal.
You should serve foods that can be easily accessed by the guests and the food handlers who need to replenish the supply. Be careful when serving exotic foods that some guests may not recognize. If you are serving unusual fish items on a buffet table, you should identify them with signs in a font large enough to read in subdued party lighting. If unusual foods are tray-passed by servers; the servers should be able to answer any questions posed by guests.
Reception menu items should be bite-sized to allow guests to sample a wide variety of foods without wasting too much of it. It ensures that the foods will be easy to consume. Ease of consumption is very important since guests may have to balance plates, glassware, handbags, business cards, and cell phones while moving around.
Never tray-pass kabobs, baby lamb chops, or food with toothpicks, or other similar items. Once eaten, the guest is left holding a skewer, greasy rib bone, or annoying toothpick that must be discarded. They create slip and fall issues, create litter, and can later be found tucked down into potted plants, seat cushions, and other hiding places.
Foods should not be messy or greasy and they should not leave stains on clothes or teeth. Be careful not to order oversauced foods, such as barbecued chicken wings, that might drip when guests are eating them. A better choice would be boneless chicken tenders that are lightly coated or served with a stiff sauce on the side.
You should always place salt and pepper shakers at carving stations. There are often a lot of other condiments set out, but rarely salt and pepper. A lot of people like salt on their meat or else they find it tasteless. It is a good idea to list salt and pepper on the BEO.
As even small plates may increase your cost by over one-third, be particularly certain not to use dinner-sized plates for receptions. Plates encourage overeating and excessive waste because a guest may fill the plate, eat some of the food, set the plate down somewhere, forget it, and then go back for another plate of food. It is not what quantity people eat; it’s how much they put on their plate. Another disadvantage of using plates: guests with plates full of food will try to find a place to sit down to eat and will not mingle and network very much, if at all.
To encourage mingling, and to control food costs, you could have servers passing foods in addition to, or instead of, placing food buffet stations throughout the room. Guests tend to eat less if the foods are passed. Generally speaking, if the foods are displayed on a buffet table where guests can help themselves, they will eat twice as much as they would if all foods were passed butler-style by servers. You would want to compare the savings with the extra labor cost, though, before making this decision.
Usually you would not have all foods passed, although it is easier to retain control of food quantities by pacing quantities, balancing expensive items with low-priced items, and avoiding the food excesses that buffets require. Generally, at least one or two food stations or action stations will enhance the visual appearance of the function room. To save money, expensive items could be passed, and inexpensive food (such as cheese cubes, vegetable trays, and dry snacks) could be available on tables. A meeting planner without budgetary concerns would probably prefer guests to have access to a mountain of shrimp on ice and a sliced tenderloin action station.
If you offer butlered foods, you should place only one type of food on a tray, or guests will take too long to make their selections. If they cannot decide easily what to take, they may take one of each. This will slow down service because the servers will not be able to work the room quickly and efficiently. It also might encourage overconsumption and food waste. Butlered food should always be finger food—food that can be consumed without eating utensils. The server should always carry a small stack of cocktail napkins.
With butlered service, the labor charge will be a bit higher. This should be offset with a lower food cost. Guests will consume less if foods are passed. You also can control the pace of service. You can stagger service by having servers with trays sent out every 15 minutes instead of taking all the food out at one time. Passed foods lend an air of elegance to the reception that many guests will appreciate. Be sure servers are assigned areas of the room to cover, or one side of the room may get all of the food.
Receptions can be tailored to any budget. Unlike other meal functions, you have more flexibility. There are many opportunities to be extravagant or frugal. For example, you can control the time allocated for the reception; you can offer a seafood bar with a few shrimp and a lot of inexpensive mussels arranged on crushed ice; or you can start with expensive hors d’oeuvres and back them up with cheese and dry snacks.
Generally speaking, if planners are paying per person, they would opt for buffet tables, dinner-sized plates, and self-service. On the other extreme, passed foods are appropriate if you are paying by consumption.
1 http://epa.gov/waste/conserve/foodwaste/fd-donate.htm (You can download the Good Samaritan Act PDF from the EPA website.)
2 Atlanta’s Table: www.acfb.org/about/our-programs/atlantas-table The Food Recovery Network: www.foodrecoverynetwork.org/ has a video about fighting waste and hunger by saving perishable food from college campuses. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaKGr7u_Q1A Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen: www.downtowneveningsoupkitchen.com/donate/. Food Donation Connection: www.foodtodonate.org/ partnered with the National Restaurant Association. City Harvest: www.cityharvest.org/ has donation guidelines listed on their site. www.cityharvest.org/donate-food/donation-guidelines Feeding America has a Food Bank Locator, by state. http://feedingamerica.org/foodbank-results.aspx
4 www.mypersonalartist.com/blog
5 www.Theperfectpaletteblog.com
7 www.lineneffects.com/size-selection.aspx