all over but the catering bill

My work group just put on this huge (190 attendees) fundraising dinner, which was held last night, featuring a local luminary and with many, many bigwigs in attendance (including the guy whose foot Red stepped on yesterday afternoon. He seemed none the worse for wear).

The lead-up to this thing was just incredible, combining many of the most taxing features of and requiring all the skills necessary to plan an ornate wedding and a successful invasion of a small Southeast Asian country.

The thing went off with almost military precision, because my boss is crazy, but in mostly a good way. A few choice details:

The response was so large that the original venue was going to be too small to seat everyone for dinner, so we had a coctail reception there and moved the dinner to a larger venue in a different building four blocks away. Therefore, we hired three buses to move everybody from one place to another, AND the two school mascots, who showed up in full costume to help move the crowd away from the free booze (no small feat) and onto the waiting buses, where they were whisked away to dinner.

At dinner, all the tables were numbered (naturally). People's name tags were decorated with an old-timey football player. The number on his jersey was Photoshopped (not by me, because I ain't that crazy) to match their table number. In case they got confused (refer to the "free booze" of the previous paragraph), tucked into the back of their nametag was a map of the banquet hall with the tables labeled and numbered, and theirs marked.

There were many such details, large, small, and miniscule. Like I said, these folks were crazy, and I was just along for the ride. But things went off well, it didn't even rain on them when they were getting into the buses, and everybody seemed to have a good time. I guess I can't argue with results, but I do know that event planning is not a field I have any desire to get into. Although I can now skirt a table and tie little bows on placecards like nobody's business.

And the big boss was EXTREMELY happy with how everything turned out, so that's always a good thing.