Hi.
Very recently (yesterday in fact) a friend asked me to help setup/decorate for her son's very first birthday party. Of course, I was happy to help - and trust me, when you're a mom with a baby - you'll know that the baby will be the fussiest thing ever the day of the event. So extra hands are always welcome.
And oddly enough, I'm not really new to this whole helping other people set up for parties. I've helped set up another first b-day party, an engagement party and of course a whole bunch of my mother's events. It's something that I'm kinda good at doing: organizing and decorating another's ideas in a classy and stylish way.
Essentially, it's never usually a case of just doing what people tell you too. Because most people don't have a layout setup in mind - just what they want to use and maybe a focal piece for the event. In fact, you are lucky if they bring all the tools necessary to hang things up. So invariably I end up doing most of the planning and actual decoration.
And depending on the people involved and the type of event, what you can do and how you deal with the situation varies.
Ideally, you know before hand that you are likely to be in charge, as does everyone else. And everything has been provided for you: from the decor to the mounting tools and so on (which is exactly what happened yesterday ^_^). As for the worst case? Well, people who undo what you've done to make it how they like it, insufficient decor, being thrown into disputing/conflicting parties, not having enough hands to do anything... the list goes on.
A lot of that is about people skills. So establishing or understanding your "place" in the scheme of things is a must from the start. As is having at least one helper that is on your side - a minion (or should I say a temporary one) is quite handy and irreplaceable.
Before you get to work helping out, it's good to know what you have to work with. How you go about doing that varies. Sometimes, you just get a box of supplies and you plan it out from there. Otherwise you have to rely on others relaying that information to you, which could also include how something should be done - depending on the person, this can be a small list or a bigger one. And usually you want to make sure that it is from someone reliable, a trusty source (especially in those not-so-friendly kinda situations).
Depending on the event or what has been previously determined, sometimes a food table or an area for kids to run around and play are things that need to be considered. So more than decor planning - it's space flow planning.
And finally, you have the execution. The key thing here is to delegate and "let-go". For me, that means remembering that it isn't my own event and that not everything has to be perfect. Hence, "let-go". It's a small thing, but it took me a while to figure that out - we don't always have 24 hours to get a place ready.
So I know I said that was the final part, but there is one thing that should always come along. Going to the person who asked for your help and bring the decor to their attention. Even with people who respect you, it doesn't hurt to remind them about what you did. That's because setting up for an event is an undertaking no matter how small the shin-dig, and not everyone gets that. Why do you think event planners charge that kind of premium?
Acknowledgement and appreciation are some things that you shouldn't let slide for one's own self respect.
Now, I think that at this point, I'm fairly good that this kinda thing. I can figure out a way to decorate for an event, whether it's ideas or just straight up decorations, executing it well. It's a type of creativity; I can organize and arrange things in a 3D space.
But in a way it's not a full creativity. It's only half of it. Sure sometimes it seems like I'm making something out of nothing (if I have very few resources) but mostly, I'm only working inside of the box of what I've been given. I'm not thinking of the box myself.
Ok, so I've planned my own events and the like, so in that respect I've done that creativity. But let's extrapolate that to other things.
Let's take cooking for instance. I mostly have a list of things that I know I can cook. But when it comes to making something entirely new or what veggies they want to use, it's usually someone else's idea. Or take work for example. When deciding to run experiments and the like, I tend to think up ideas around what we have in the lab or what someone has already mentioned to me. It almost feels like I come up on a blank when I have to think of other things.
It's basically like the creativity comes from how I use what I've been given to work with, not the creativity of what to use to get something done. And sometimes it's almost like I've locked myself into a certain way to thinking.
Maybe I'm over-thinking it. Maybe doing research to come across ideas is actually the norm. Maybe I'm too ingrained in the idea that my creativity is absolute, and so it is shocking when it fails.
Maybe.
What ever it is, let's see if I can at least overcome it.
Another selection by Florence + the Machine:
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