NYE Spectacular Garden Party!
Seeing in the new year with a bang!
The years seem to fly by more quickly since becoming a parent. With this in mind it’s important to properly celebrate the passing of each one in the company of your nearest and dearest. It’s a perfect time to look back at all the highlights from the previous year and to make plans for the next one.
New Year’s Eve parties have changed for us over the years. The youthful days of heading into town with a big group of friends and dancing the night away in a crowded nightclub are some way behind us. To be fair it isn’t such a bad thing – queuing for ages to get into somewhere awful to pay crazy prices and be surrounded by strangers isn’t something I greatly miss!
These days I much prefer something lower key, with good company, decent food and a glass of bubbly to see in the new year. Over the past few years, our group of friends have taken turns to host NYE parties, each with a theme based on a major event from the previous twelve months.
A few years ago, we volunteered to host a party where we decided to go big. We had a nice long garden so decided to erect a 9m x 3m marquee, providing us with an outdoor dance floor, complete with speakers and strobe lighting. We even invited some of our friends to perform as they had recently formed a band!
The other big benefit of the marquee that we had envisioned was the ability for our friends to watch our planned fireworks display from outside in the garden whilst remaining under cover.
The whole plan seemed perfect in principal. We had bought and put up the marquee, laid some underlay down as a temporary floor and set all the equipment up. The only thing we hadn’t planned was the weather!
As the afternoon of the party came around, the wind and rain started. We tied the marquee down as best we could to trees, fences and anything else nearby, but the wind was winning. Out of desperation, we erected wind breaks to deflect some of the breezes away from the flailing marquee and weighted every side down with bricks and concrete blocks.
It was an awesome evening, but on more than one occasion we thought we were going to see the marquee flying away around us!
With a bit more planning we could have saved ourselves the worry. Not only do companies like garden-camping sell a massive range of marquees and garden furniture, but they also sell leg weights, peg sets and wind bar clips – perfect for gardens and camping and New Year’s Eve parties alike!
They also sell every type of outdoor heating and lighting equipment you could possibly want to make your party go out with a bang.
When our turn to host another New Year’s Eve party, we’ll almost definitely be back out in the garden. But this time around we’ll make sure we’re prepared for every possible eventuality – even the British weather!
