Planning a Family Reunion

My family lives in about 7 states total. We, like many other American families, do not see each other very often. Every few years, however, we make a plan to come together and party like nobody's business. Normally the meeting place is near the home of one of the ELDERS. My mom's house, or my Aunt and Uncle's place. Makes sense-- the Boomers have space and money, the salt and pepper of a good party. This year we changed the rules. Well, actually, it was about 3 years ago, which was when we started to plan our European reunion in Trieste for this summer in June. In the end there were about 23 of us in Trieste, we worked it all out, and we had an awesome time. Since a couple of people have asked how we managed to do it, here are some guidelines in case you would like to do something similar.

1. Start planning 3 years in advance. This gives everyone time to save up, get off work, get a passport or renew their old one, and mentally prepare.

2. Plan for 3 days with one BIG party on one of them. We make our Big Party on Fathers' Day because in the US it always falls on a Sunday in June. That is the day that all guests MUST be in town. This gives people wiggle room to make their plans and get a good deal on plane tickets.

3. Unless you live in a place like Rome, Venice, or Florence, don't count on everyone wanting to stay in your town just because you live there. Some members of my family got their tourism out of the way before coming to Trieste, others started here and went off to other places they hadn't seen yet after recovering from our party. Trieste is a great home base for trips to Venice, Rome, Slovenia, etc. Ryan air flies out of Trieste and Treviso, too. Easy jet flies out of Venice.

4. Lodging. Help your guests by giving them different options as to where to stay. Hotels always have airconditioning, which Americans appreciate when it is hot as a mofo in Trieste. I had people sleeping at friends' places, my house, in a residence (hotel where they clean once a week) and at a hotel. Everyone was happy. You provide the resources, they make their own plans. I think that works best. Put people close to busses so they can be self-sufficient. Everyone stayed downtown, so that made transportation easy, too.

5. Activities: We planned a series of things to do that people could opt to participate in... or not. We made everything we could Kid Friendly. 

Guided walking Tour of Trieste
Family Italian language class
Treasure hunt at the farmers' market
Cooking class
Dinner made by family with chef Federico
The Big Party

6. Transportation. Trieste is largely a walking city and my people stayed downtown. Those who did not were within feet of a city bus stop. There are also taxis and my family used those too. When we went up to the Carso to our party, we rented a bus to take 20 people and the other handful went in cars. If you want to rent a bus, try just over the border in Slovenia,  and there are places in Trieste, too. Be careful, though, weekends are much harder to plan in the summer because of all of the other little day trips people organize. The train is always a good idea and kids love them. They key is putting people in a position to be autonomous.

7. The Party. Finding the appropriate venue is not easy in Europe, especially if your group is big. We opted to go up to carso and have our party at a wine-producer that also has the Best Osmizza in the world. We worked out a price per person ahead-of-time and a menu. They gave us a great deal. My family drank A LOT of wine, so we threw more money in over the course of the evening.

Final thoughts.

8. You never know who is going to come. We had some last minute confirmations, and other people didn't come who we thought for sure would. No biggy. Do not take these things personally. Love the ones you're with.

9. Let your guests be part of the plan. You can give them information and guide them, but, ultimately, the success of the shabang is up to everyone, and that takes the pressure off.

10. Don't forget the family portrait. They are dippy as hell, but you just HAVE to. Our uniform this year was the Italy soccer shirt. I found them on sale at Lidl for cheap cheap cheap and bought one for each person, including the Italian components taking part in our reunion. They made for an awesome picture and a rocking souvenir!

11. Create a closed Facebook page of your event. This helps people get psyched up and becomes an online journal of everyone's trip. Afterwards people share their photos and videos here. I still go back to ours and look at it sometimes and remember how much fun we had.

12. Other Communication. Important info should be shared on Facebook and email for those who don't DO Facebook, especially in the time leading up to the reunion. In Trieste you don't always have wifi, so your family should know that you can also make meeting times and places just like in the olden days. Europeans use Whatsapp much more than imessage, by the way. Some of the family members NEVER communicated directly, but that was okay because there is usually a spokesperson in each family that just naturally speaks on behalf of the others.

13. Home Base. We used the Italian American Association as a home base, since it is centrally located, there is wi-fi, a bar downstairs, and I was often there.

Conclusion: Keep your plans flexible, give people options, make sure there is plenty of wine, and you can't go wrong when you are planning your next reunion!

HAVE FUN!