The whole family’s in town, it’s summertime and sweltering hot outside–that kind of hot that makes you crave air conditioning and a nice, tall cup of ice water, but following your cravings would mean leaving the family reunion to sit in your car with the air on full blast.
It doesn’t have to be this way, though, so planning ahead for the summer heat can do wonders for the family reunion, which means you might just consider throwing a family reunion splash party!
Invitations
If you are planning on throwing a family reunion splash party, then this is something that you would want to include on the family reunion invitations to ensure each family member brings what they need: Swimsuit, towels, sunscreen, water toys, floats, and whatever else they wish to bring for the water. It never hurts to include a little checklist to help them out!
You can use this as an opportunity to hand out family reunion memorabilia by theming it to the splash party. Items such as customized towels, hats, or water bottles will come in handy during the reunion and make wonderful things to take home as a favor.
Decorations
When it comes to decorations for a family reunion splash party, think water, of course! A nautical theme tends to work well for such event, so I will use this for my examples going forward. If you are in search of suitable color schemes, blue, red and white works well, as does blue and gold.
- Lifesavers: You can buy foam rings for really cheap from a craft store and decorate them to look like life preservers pretty easily.
- Anchors: Anchor make for great nautical decoration and can take up a lot of decorating space! This anchor, for example, on Amazon if 5 feet tall and very cheap considering the decoration size!
- Ropes and nets: Ropes and nets should be used all over in place of where you would put streamers for a typical party. Have fun with this decoration by adding little sea creatures attached to it to give it that deep-sea feel!
Food
Food for a splash party should not be much different than what you would do for a regular party, just add a bit of the theme and you have the perfect buffet!
- Cupcakes: Who doesn’t love cupcakes? I know I always want to eat them all when I see them. Frost them blue to resemble water, and top them with a shark fin, and you have a perfect splash party treat!
- Fish props: For food that is more difficult to theme, such as bowls of chips, just add in a few plastic fish into the mix, or have a fake shark on guard near the bowls.
- Water “buffet”: Have a dispenser of ice cold water ready, and along with that, have many different varieties of water flavorings, such as Crystal Light, Kool-Aid singles, and Mio. Oh yeah, don’t forget the fun paper straws and umbrellas!
Games
Okay, games. A family reunion splash party will likely already be at a pool, as it should, but you really need every water game and activity you can think of! Best to host at someone’s home with a large yard, if possible. Here’s a bunch of water games that should be considered:
- Water balloons: What kind of splash party doesn’t have water balloons?
- Sprinklers: If there’s young kids who cannot swim yet, sprinklers are a good option for them!
- Slip n’ slide: Slip n’ slides are a great time for all ages, just get one and it will surely be used!
- Water guns: Fill a large, plastic tub with water guns, super soakers, and whatever water weapons you can find, your family will do the rest!
- Marco-polo: This is a classic pool game, you know the rules.
- Hot balloon: This is kinda like hot potato, but with balloons. Fill a few large balloons (full) of water, and using one balloon at a time, each player stands in a circle a few feet apart and tosses the balloon to each other. There’s three ways to get out: Having the balloon when the music stops, dropping the balloon, or it popping in your possession.
- Wet sponge handoff: Each team of three or four people will need a big sponge and two buckets: One full of water, and another that is empty with a line marking the target. The team stands in a line, and starting with the sponge in the full bucket of water, they pass the sponge down the line to the person standing by the empty bucket who must wring out the sponge, then hand it back down the line to be repeated. First team to fill the empty bucket to the line wins!
Favors
As mentioned a bit earlier, towels make a great favor to be handed out at the end of the family reunion splash party, but a change of clothes works just as well. This is a great opportunity to hand out family reunion t-shirts! It’s not the size of the favor that matters, but the size of the splash!
