In college, it was easy. You’d buy a keg of beer and drag it in your kitchen. Maybe you tidied up a bit, but probably you didn’t. You were giving away free booze. And that simple fact guaranteed a night of partying your face off with a few hundred close and personal friends.
Things are different now. You’re older, and people are more sophisticated. They want to be surprised. They want to be impressed.
But what if they’re not? What if your party’s a dud?
Enter Johnell Huebner, the fast-talking, detail-obsessing, party-planning owner of Clearly Classy Events in Kyle.
On a recent evening at her “office” — the dining room table — Huebner’s husband Russ, a Kyle City Council member, distracts the couple’s two young children, she opens her calendar book to reveal a string of color-coded events. There are days and days of them, each marked pink, orange, yellow, green or blue.
“I’ve got like 40 weddings right now,” Huebner says. “All of a sudden, my business hit the three-year mark and it’s just been insane.”
In the early days of her company, Clearly Classy Events, Huebner says she was guided by party-planning instincts. How would she want the night to unfold if it were her big day? But after organizing scores of galas, weddings and fundraisers over the years, Huebner says she has developed a set of strategies so effective, she has begun teaching her system to interns.
We asked her to share those strategies with us.
First, set a realistic budget, then get creative
My biggest goal is to create something unexpected. People are walking into a venue and not really knowing what to expect, and all of a sudden they’re like, “Oh my gosh, it’s amazing.”
Let’s say we’re having a Christmas party. Everybody’s been to a Christmas party. So how can we make this Christmas party something that’s different, something that’s special, something that people will want to continue to come to and maybe even pay for or be a sponsor in the future.
Know your needs before shopping for a venue
How many people are you trying to entertain? Are you having a sit-down dinner or a buffet, because that’s going to make a huge difference in your space. Are you going to have dancing? The venue is usually one of your largest expenses, so you have to be creative to stay within your budget.
For bigger parties, the quality of the invitation sets the tone
Social media, Evite and Facebook are great for little gatherings at the house, but if you’re having a legit party there’s nothing like the power of a really pretty invitation coming in the mail. The more important your invitation feels, the more obligated people feel to show up.
You can do them on the cheap, but it’s really important to do something creative with your invitations. One time I got these little piñatas, stuffed them with candy and put in a slip of paper with information about the event, and I mailed them in teeny-tiny boxes to like 30 people. How fun is that to get a piñata in the mail?
Question the caterer
Never assume anything. If you assume somebody’s going to be doing a job, I guarantee you they’re not.
I would ask the caterer, “Are you bringing the disposables, are you going to be serving this, how many employees are you bringing, how long are you going to set up and clean up, or are you just dropping off?” Because some people think the caterer is there to set up and serve it all, but they’re actually just there to drop it off and walk out the door. And then what?
Cleanup is huge, because the last thing you want to do is be cleaning dishes while your guests are having a great time. You want to be mingling.
Don’t buy too much food
Probably 99.9 percent of the time people are scared that they’re going to not have enough food, so they purchase like 50 percent too much — and then they spend way too much money. With alcohol, you could stash the beer away in a cooler, no big deal. But with food you’re stuck with it, and you’re probably throwing it in the trash.
I count for 85 percent of my invitation list to show up, and I have some backup stuff in the fridge that hasn’t been prepared. I’ll say, this is the food I’m going to prepare, and then I’m going to cook this and I’ll have some things that are easy to pop into the oven or the microwave or that I would just have to slice and put out. Fruit is easy to chop up, or pull some grapes off the vine. Throw a pizza in the oven, no big deal.
As a host, you can’t really avoid the pre-party jitters
There’s not a single party or an event that I’ve planned that I haven’t been freaking out the day before. I may be able to hide it and be like, “OK, keep your cool, we’ve gotta do this,” but there is absolutely a 100 percent chance that it is going to fail.
If I put enough organization into it and enough thought into the details, I have to trust that my system works. The day before an event, I have to calm myself down and go, “You’ve done everything you can do. On this thing that is out of your control, you can’t think about that anymore. You’ve dotted your I’s and crossed your T’s.”
Then I pinpoint the things that are in my control and that could actually go wrong. I make a little worry list. For example, did I really buy enough alcohol? OK, if this were to happen, what would I do? Then I create a couple of plan Bs, plan Cs, plan Ds, however many it takes to feel comfortable with my plan.
You have the power to make people mingle
Our natural human instincts are to walk in the door, find a safe place and stay there. But for a good party, that’s just not gonna work. That’s why cocktail hours are so important. There’s nothing worse than an event where you go in and you have to sit straight down to dinner. Screw that. Everybody needs a cocktail hour.
I want people to come in and get a drink right away. Loosen them up just a little bit. I want them to have something in their hand. I want them to hear music playing in the background. There’s no silence in my parties at all.
Food is good to have, especially if it’s being passed around. It lets people talk about the food they’re eating: “Oh, that’s delicious. Oh, that’s disgusting.” Whatever. They’re talking about it. That also gives people the opportunity to move around and mingle.
Once the party is going, timing is everything
Here you’ve created this perfect environment. People are happy to be talking, they’re networking, they’re meeting new people, and you’re telling them they have to stop talking and find a seat. You’re cutting off what you just created.
There’s a timing for it that can’t be put down on a piece of paper. You just have to feel that timing and know when it’s time to do that. I give myself an agenda for when I would like to see those things happen, but ultimately if I’m standing at that party and it doesn’t feel like it’s time, then I’ll wait. Give it a couple more minutes. I can’t explain why I’m waiting. I just know it’s not time yet. Then, once we get the program started, people are ready for it. They’ll be like “OK, I’ve talked to you enough. I’ll sit down.”
Don’t kill your party
That period of time when you force people to sit down and do what you want them to do cannot be too long or else you lose them. I realize business has to be done at these events, but you can hold them there too long. When people start to chatter, that’s when you know you’ve lost their attention and they’re done with it. Either change the topic or let everybody go and do their thing.
If you keep them there too long, they’re just gonna go home. They’re bored, they’ve lost their buzz, they haven’t been back to the bar in over an hour. It’s over. You’ve just killed your event, effectively.
Things should never last longer than the time it takes to serve the dinner, eat the dinner, take the dishes and get up. If you can do that effectively, they’re going to stay at your party, and they’re probably going to spend some money on your silent auction items because they’re getting a little tipsy.
Then let go
People have worked really hard and they want everything to go off perfectly. But once the party’s started and the ball is rolling and you’re still hung up on little details you couldn’t control, you just have to let those things go and enjoy being in the moment.
I go to all these weddings. I’m not drinking, I don’t know anybody there, but I’m still enjoying myself because I’m letting the flow carry me away too. If you’re organizing a party, you need to remember to have fun, too. Don’t be so overplanned you can’t enjoy yourself.
Delegate things. Don’t be so serious. It’s still fun. Remember, at the end of the day, it’s still a party.
Huebner is planning several upcoming events, including the Miss Hays County Pageant. She was recently named a “Shining Star under 40” by the San Marcos Chamber of Commerce, was a finalist for the Austin Business Journal’s “Profiles in Power and Women of Influence” award and is involved in numerous civic organizations.
Interview has been edited and condensed and first appeared in the October edition of All Around Hays.
