SUSANNA RICHARDSON E VERY THING ORGANI S ED
LIVE 24-SEVEN
SUSANNA RICHARDSON HAS EVERYTHING ORGANISED. . .
Susanna is a wedding and event planner who has been responsible for some of the most talked about parties both here and abroad. A former city girl, she's swapped her heels for the Cotswolds and we're delighted that she will be sharing her musings with us each month.
Every year at this time I work on what is probably my favourite event: it’s not fancy, it’s not flashy, it’s a good old-fashioned bonfire in a back garden!
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I can’t really explain why I love it so much. I mean it’s generally soggy and I’m outside wearing a cagoule which makes me look like a monk. I spend a lot of time pre-event cooking chilli and baking brownies (please note I'm not a caterer and have no idea how I even got myself into the cooking part) and spend around three days afterwards trying to wash the smell of fire out of my clothes. Yet still it fills me with that belly of excitement that you get being six years old and high off the sugar on a toffee apple.
My team and I talk about it for months, coming up with new ideas to surprise the guests who grow in numbers year-on-year as it becomes the party of legends. We throw out tunes from a busted out boombox and heat up hotdogs from a camping stove underneath a festoon lit gazebo. It’s a far cry from the glamour of a Tuscan wedding, but golly is it fabulous.
My husband is now in on the act. He’s got the role of fire maker. Taking him back to his caveman years he fetches wood and
keeps the mammoth fire fed, which is no mean feat because that bad boy can demolish logs by the minute. Each year he engineers another way to fetch logs in their masses. This year I’ve heard murmurings of a modified trolley with off-road tyres and headlights. I’ll make sure I’m around to take a video!
The evening always finishes with the best of firework displays. Yes, we have to get some party planner chic in there, so we do have a rather fabulous professional display (mostly because there is literally no one in the team I would trust to fire a load of explosives near a house, but also because it really does look pretty).
I think somewhere along the way, we've forgotten the joy of all the small things. In a world where Instagram v reality is so prevalent, we often create things just for the ‘instalove’ and ‘likes’ on a page. Doing something purely for whoops and belly laughs seems to be a lost art and it’s why the bonfire party with sparklers, s’mores and a homemade Guy warms my rain-pelleted heart. It’s good old fashioned fun and frolics.
Teaching kids how to toast a marshmallow and pretending we're at a 90’s rave with fistfuls of glow sticks is good for the soul. Oh, and the fact that I get to have my first mug of mulled wine has nothing at all to do with it...honestly!
LIVE24-SEVEN.COM
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