Planning My First MRX Event.

I have always loved attending events, especially those that are well planned. I mean, who doesn’t love an unforgettable experience? Well this time around, I was on the planning side and boy was it a task! I guess you never know the pressure people deal with behind the scenes until you’re the one facing the fire.

Mwalimu Rachel, Fakii, Brenda, Laura, Kevin

This is how it all began.

So we began planning the Mwalimu Rachel Thank You Party a bit late, four days earlier to be precise. We had been all been swamped, but either way, we knew that we had to pull it off somehow. Let’s start with the basics of event planning; you need a tent, décor, lights, sound, catering, drinks and most importantly your invited guests. Seems obvious but wait until it’s D-day, ndio utajua hujui!

Friday, December 15 2017, the long awaited day finally arrived! I had been advised to call the suppliers earlier and ask them to come set up in the morning because for sure, someone would mess me up. I made sure I reached out to all of them in good time but best believe, everyone came in like an hour late. Just as I had been told. I tried to keep it together because at some point I felt like I was going to lose it. Quickly, the tent and décor guys set up and then the crew doing lights arrived and did their thing like an hour later. Sound guys came in much later but still managed to do pull it off. Lesson learnt; always do set up a day before or say 10 hours prior to the event maana mambo huenda mrama.

As the afternoon approached, we were confident that our 30 confirmed guests would show up. So we started testing the sound, changing into our sheek African attire as we did some last minute shopping. My colleague who was emceeing started mastering his script in order to plan the night out. Lakini si yeye huwa mfunny!!! I was confident that he’d do an amazing job.

Brian

At say 4:00 pm, two representatives from our main event partners Belaire arrived. They swiftly set up their tables as they chilled bottles of sparkling wine in readiness for the event. They were so lovely, professional and courteous to our guests! We were all very impressed by how they conducted themselves throughout the entire event. It’s then that I realized how important it is to always go an extra mile in whatever you do. Seeing it first hand was very refreshing, I must admit.

5:00 pm, Hakuna mtu. I honestly was a bit worried because by then because I had anticipated that we’d have at least two guests. 7:00 pm, our photographer comes to me distraught telling me of how his memory card fell down and got spoilt. Yaani of all things that could happen!!! We told him to rush to Yaya Centre and see if he could get a replacement asap. Kidogo kidogo, huyo Denno akaja akismile. My heart was at peace, kidogo tu, sio sana.

It was not until 7:30 pm that guests started arriving. My team managed to keep me calm as we sipped on some good Belaire. At say 9:00 pm, more people began to trickle in. Mwalimu Rachel arrived just at the nick of time and she started mingling with the guests. By the time she was giving her speech, we were about 12 people in total. By say 10:00 pm, we were about 17 people, which was a good number, but not the number of guests we had anticipated. Lesson learnt; always invite a surplus of like 10 people to your events because most of the time, only half of the invited guests usually show up.

Brian and Waithera

Seeing that everything was slowly coming together, I started laughing here and there and mingling with people. Event hata haijaisha, when the sound guy comes whispering in my ear that it was time for him to set down and leave. Aki, ukweli tu sikuwa in the mood kuanzana na mashida. So I asked our MC to sort it out, and he did. The sound guy was kind enough to extend the time by an hour and by then, the party had died down. Talk about perfect timing! After that, we dined but sssssssstill we knew that we had to get going. We packed our stuff, made sure we’ve locked the office before leaving the venue.