How to Throw a Packing Party When Moving

What do you do when a family of seven has just a few weeks to pack up a house they’ve lived in for thirteen years?  You throw a packing party and let all the friends help out!

While moving into a new place can be so much fun and so full of joy, packing up the old house is so stinkin’ hard, especially if time is limited.  Gathering a group of friends for a packing party is a fool-proof way to take the sting out of packing up an entire house.

For our packing party, we gathered a group of our closest friends, hordes of packing supplies like boxes, bubble wrap, and newsprint, and added a few fun touches for a day of packing.

Every party has to have a banner, right?  This bubble wrap and kraft paper banner coordinated well with the piles of boxes stacking up in the house and made it all feel a bit more festive!

I covered the table with kraft paper and a bubble wrap table runner and used paperware that could be quickly cleaned up and thrown away at the end.

Guests were asked to bring a snack to share and serve them in boxes or neutral colored dishes.  This cardboard hat box was one of my favorites {and such a fun way to repurpose an old, unused box}.  If you’d prefer not to serve snacks, you could also order a pile of pizza for the packers.

I wrapped water bottles up in bubble wrap and sealed them with a bit of washi tape.

A pitcher of tea or cans of soda would also be great but the less mess, the better, especially when there’s so much other work to be done.

My favorite touch was the little note station.

We asked everyone to tuck a little handwritten note into the full boxes before sealing them up with tape.  Won’t it be fun for the family to read those when they’re unpacking?  Messages don’t have to be long … a quick one-liner or a word of encouragement is perfect.

Assign different friends to different rooms, go over any guidelines the family might have, then wrap and pack …

… and label and chat.  You’ll have a lot of the house packed up in boxes in no time and everyone will have a blast hanging out together! 

Are you moving soon?  Would you ever host a packing party?