Pop quiz: What is the job you can assign for your event that
will have you breathing sighs of relief (and admiring a little extra shred of
intact sanity) that you have probably forgotten?
You have someone to make the key trade off with the cranky
venue attendant, you've hired the limo driver, you know exactly whose hands
will be on that expensive champagne, and there is a greeter for each VIP guest
at the airport, so you could not have forgotten a thing. Right?
Answer: A cleanup crew.
Oh, wow. The 7 boxes of hand-shredded confetti and 300
votive candles atop what used to be your expensive kitchen table just fell into
an ugly light. Pity.
It is easy during planning to stack on detail after detail,
obsessing the whole time about the perfect guest experience. We pack in little
unexpected touches, plan to transport impossibly unwieldy food and décor, and
play our fantasy of the special day in our minds ad nauseum. Rarely, though,
does our mental picture point to the end of the soiree. Guests have left and
the lights are on, and everyone on the planning team is either MIA or has
plopped into plush chairs complaining about their swollen feet. With a little
luck, they are probably tipsy too.
If you have been the person in charge of motivating an
intoxicated, whiny version of the enthusiastic crew who hours before scattered
rose petals on every inch of your venue, you know it is next to impossible.
Your team evaporates and yet more stuff seems to precipitate. You have probably
pulled the ill-advised all-nighter(s) prior to this moment, so it can feel as
if your assistant has actually morphed into a pile of shrimp shells and smashed
cake.
I have witnessed each version of this: The wedding party
member who has found true love in a visiting cousin, their promises to do
anything and everything possible to make your day special forgotten in the
romantic aftermath. There’s the non-profit staff, disappearing into their
offices to make incredibly important phone calls while you answer awkward
questions from the trickling guests. And, of course, there is the bubbling band
of socialites whose early attempts to casually direct the afterparty have
become a full on passive-aggressive war and is carrying them all out the door
in a sequined skirmish.
Meanwhile, you and one or two trusty companions lug load
after load to your crammed cars, and it has just dawned on you that you
promised the cranky attendant you would vacuum and put the trash out.
This can all be avoided, of course, but you must follow a
direct method: Recruit, assign, repeat, multiply.
Recruit
Recruit a team of reliable folks to be your cleanup crew.
Avoid the obvious choices; they are probably already up to their necks in this
little adventure. Promise whatever they ask, and ask them to plan to be working
for an extra-wide window of time. Ask half of them to recruit a helper. Make
sure they each have a car or access to one.
Assign
Assign every possible detail. My uncle was the only person
in charge of loading our car after my sister’s wedding, and he drunkenly
stacked the food on top of her dress, which I had to carefully extract so as
not to spill a morsel. Give one person food, one person décor, etc. Keep
handlers separate from cleaners; no one wants to fold 300 chairs and then sweep
the floor. Arrange the destination for each team member’s part of the
breakdown, and make sure that someone has made room in the fridges, planned to
drop off items to charity, or whatever needs to be done.
Repeat
Repeat every step of the way in every fashion you can
imagine. Do not worry if you seem micromanaging; they may read your 6Kb email
and follow-up texts while they should be working, but that is a much better
time for someone to be annoyed with you than at the end of the event.
Multiply
Secretly recruit a second crew. They can be smaller than
your first, but make sure they are the quiet types who like to be needed. I
guarantee you will be thanking them.
And if you plan your cleanup crew properly, chances are they
will be thanking you as well.
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