Have you thrown a shower with multiple people?

[jennynumbers]

My SIL's baby shower is coming up in March and the group is getting together in February to start the planning. My main problem is my control. I have a very hard time relinquishing control. I'm the type of person that would rather do it all, on my own, than have it done incorrectly. Yes, I know I need to trust other people to handle their responsibilities, but that is a post for another day.

How do you handle the $ factor? I don't want someone to spend $200 on appetizers/drinks and someone else only spend $75 on X.

My other SIL, SIL BFF, my (our) MIL and SIL's mom will all be involved. BFF is going to be a challenge. I know this already.

Look, I plan parties all the time. I am insanely organized when it comes to them and have details out the wazoo. Even when we were planning inlaws 50th anniversary, I pretty much took charge, delegated and got shit done. It was appreciated and requested though. But, I don't want to step on toes with this party.

[sjh722]

When I've hosted showers with a group, we all just split the total evenly. I would make sure you are all on the same page before anyone starts spending money.

[glw]

Jan 14, 2015 9:12:47 GMT -5 jennynumbers said:

 I'm the type of person that would rather do it all, on my own, than have it done incorrectly. 

This is me as well.

When I've co-hosted, we divided up tasks by type, like Person A takes care of all the food. Person B takes care of all the decorations and games, Person C does the room reservation, invitations and RSVPs. And then we just butt out of tasks that aren't ours. We didn't cross-check our choices with each other, we just did our own things and it came together at the end. We each kept a list of what we spent and then split it evenly at the end (we didn't start with a strict budget, though, so that made it easier). 

[OrangePixyStix]

I've only co-hosted once and luckily it was with the mother of the soon-to-be-mom so I didn't worry if she overspent on the items she had requested to take on. We did have an approximate budget for food & decoration items, but then we kind of split the responsibility and didn't really consult or update on anything once the delegations were done.

If you are having multiple people involved, I like the idea of saving receipts and just tallying things up at the end to figure out if someone should throw in more or get some kickback if they had spent more than others.

[alabasterangel]

I wouldn't be able to let go. Good luck!