5 Tips To Save Money When Planning Your Class Reunion

If you're planning a class reunion, then you've already realized that it can cost quite a bit of money. A not so extravagant event can still run into the thousands and that's before the cost of the hotel room or airfare. Here are five tips that will help you lower the cost per person at your next class reunion.

Get Group Hotel Discounts
By far the biggest way to save money at any class reunion is by getting discounted group rates for hotels. Getting these group rates used to be cumbersome as you had to call dozens of hotels, compare rates and amenities. However, with the Internet, you can now fill out the group hotel rates request and have hotels in your desired city and budget e-mail you their group rates.

When looking for dates, try to select the time of the year that the hotel will not be that busy. If you book your class reunion during the busy season, you're bound to get extremely high rates. If however, you plan your class reunion during the shoulder months (the months around the busy months) you’re more likely to score a group discount of greater than 20 to 25% per room.


Reunion Trinkets
Don't just buy reunion favors locally without shopping around. You can get very high quality personalized class reunion favors online at places like Orientaltrading.com. It's as simple as googling "party favors". Many of these party companies can also handle personalization and will offer group discounts for that as well.

In addition, make sure you plan ahead and order months before you actually need the party favors. If you wait till the last moment, you may have to pay for a rush order for extra shipping.

Lastly, many companies, online and local, will try to assess a set up fee for personalizing the party favors. Before placing the order, make sure you know what the set up fee is and decide whether it is still cost-effective to order from them.

Class reunion Websites Can Save You Money
There are many benefits to having a class reunion website. Among our top ones are that it increases interaction between classmates, keeps everybody informed, and allows for registration and ticket sales to occur online.

Being able to register online is a significant savings. It used to be that you had to design and print your own registration forms and then physically mail them out. Doing so cost thousands of dollars in postage, paper and ink. However, with advances in website technology, it is a lot easier to set up a class reunion website where you can easily design registration forms without knowing any programming.

Find Classmates Online
There are many reunion planning companies that will charge you a per-person fee to find classmates. While these services may be necessary for some, a cheaper place to start looking for your classmates is through your Facebook account. First, set up a Facebook group for your class reunion, and invite the classmates that you have kept in touch with to join. Encourage all the reunion planning committee members to do the same. As more people join, news of your class reunion will spread from classmate to classmate. We know of many class reunions that have found over 70% of their classmates just by utilizing online companies like Facebook (which is free) and classmates.com (inexpensive).

Evite.com
Instead of sending out physical invitations and save the date cards, use Evite.com to create them online. They have predesigned templates that you can use to create your own class reunion invites. Not only is it cheaper, it is far more efficient than mailing out invitations and waiting for RSVP's.

Class reunions can get very expensive, very quickly. In order to contain costs, you have to be frugal and sensible at the same time. Use the tips above to help lower the cost of the class reunion for your attendees. In doing so, you will increase the number of attendees at the reunion itself.