As event planners and the backbone of many extravaganzas, I’m sure you’ve been a witness to a variety of different types of guests. From the wonderful and gracious to the questionable and rude guest, it can be a rollercoaster trying to navigate how to handle every situation thrown at you.
1. The Heavily Intoxicated Guest
We’re starting off strong with the very entertaining but very messy guest – The Heavily Intoxicated Guest. There’s always a strange love/ hate relationship with this type of guest. Not only are they enjoying themselves, but they are keeping the other less intoxicated people entertained. The funny dance moves, close-talking, and extreme love for anyone they encounter is all fun and games until they go over the edge. Nobody wants to be that person or have to deal with that person who passes out, throws up, or becomes belligerent. Learning how to diffuse a situation and cut off a guest without them getting upset is a crucial skill needed for the overly intoxicated guest. Making sure your guests have a good time, including the alcohol enthusiast, is essential for event success!
2. The Food Hog
Another guest you may encounter is the – Food Hog. I love food just as much as the next person but, it’s common courtesy to leave enough food for everyone. It’s easy to over-serve yourself, especially if you’re hungry. The great thing about events, especially events with buffets, is the guest can always go for seconds! Often times, a guest’s eyes will be bigger than their stomach. Plating enough food for yourself that could feed three people isn’t necessarily proper etiquette and can be considered rude. More common than not, there will always be at least one guest who takes advantage of the “free” food. You’d think they pulled a Gandhi and didn’t eat for 21 days before the event. To ensure the food hog leaves enough for the other guests, you could hire an employee to serve the food. You could also place a sign that says, “one entrée per guest” and trust that the food hog complies.
3. The Judgey Guest
Unfortunately, not every guest at your event will enjoy themselves or agree with your planning decisions. This guest is known as – The Judgey Guest. This guest is simply not impressed. They probably don’t like your choice of color scheme, menu options, or the music isn’t their taste. They may even have thoughts or voice that they could’ve planned the event better. Although it can be discouraging and quite irritating to deal with these types of guests, it is the event planner’s job to make the event the best it can be. If everyone enjoys themselves and seems pleased, the judgmental guest’s suggestions and displeased attitude isn’t significant. Do your thing; you’re a fantastic event planner!
4. The Event Crasher
Although being a wedding crasher is portrayed as being funny and light-hearted in the movies, it’s not anywhere near acceptable in the event planning world. This introduces our next type of guest – The Event Crasher. Most events are private and don’t require a guest list or security, this basically leaves an open door for event crashers. If someone is going to crash an event or show up unannounced, it’s usually with ill intent. Nobody with common courtesy and respect for the event or guests will just show up. As the event planner, you had a big job to plan out how much food and space was needed to accommodate all of the invited event guests. Event crashers become a problem when they eat the food and take up the space of invited guests. The best way to handle this situation is to speak to them rationally and explain to them why they can’t be accommodated like the other guests. Depending on their mindset, an event crasher may just want to go with the flow and hangout. If the crasher just showed up to be wild and disrupt the event, it’s your right to refuse service and kick them out.
5. The Can’t Take a Hint Guest
It’s getting late, guests are leaving, the bartender and wait staff are fiddling their thumbs, and the DJ is on the tail end of their playlist. For most people, these are indicators that an event or party is coming to an end and that it’s time to head out. This is now the time for me to introduce our next type of guest – The Can’t Take a Hint Guest. This guest is the last to leave, and they usually make sure it’s as late and as inconvenient as possible. Not only is the entire staff exhausted from working such an awesome event, but, their work usually doesn’t stop after the event ends. The staff must wait until the last guest leaves, so they can start the cleanup process. The “can’t take a hint guest” makes this entire process longer and delayed, making the staff work later. In this case, there’s usually nothing that can be done to handle the guest that won’t leave. Unless it’s affecting the venue rental time or it’s after hours at a restaurant, all guests have the right to stay (all self-awareness aside). Although it’s not ideal and honestly quite awkward, you just need to ride out this situation and cross your fingers that they leave soon.
