You (or your graduate) did it! Now, let Tent Guys take over. We have everything you need to celebrate your new graduate!

After a more than a year-long pandemic, whether your student is graduating from elementary, middle, high school, college, or another advanced degree, you can’t wait to celebrate their accomplishments! There is so much to be proud of after all the work and many hours it’s taken them to make it to graduation, especially in the last year! You can’t wait to celebrate the successes of your grads with friends and family, and what better way to do so than to throw a graduation party?

Your graduate is sure to want to enjoy a party this year. Like any other party, the key to success is in the planning and the rentals, and that’s where Tent Guys’ expertise comes in. We’re here to help you with every step of your graduation party planning!

Start planning your graduation party now!

If you’re only inviting close friends or throwing a big bash with extended family, it’s important to keep your timeframes at the forefront and get started early. Our recommended timelines are as follows:

1-3 Months Before

Schedule graduation pictures for your grad! If you want to feature some photos of your graduate at the party or use their photos for an invitation, be sure to schedule photos about 1-2 months before the graduation. If it’s a high school or college grad, you’ll know how busy photographers are during the spring season – between prom, weddings, and senior photo shoots, it can be super competitive to snag a session with a great photographer. Plus, if you want to hit the most iconic spots on campus, you don’t want to spend paid chunks of time during your photo session waiting to pose in front of your college’s sign or best statues. After the photoshoot, give yourself about 1-3 weeks to receive the edited photos back. You may also want to ask your photographer if they can do a quick turn-around of some initial prints so that you can get a head start on invitations for the graduation party.  

Pro tip: Definitely don’t wait until graduation day to get your precious photos or capture fond memories of the high school or campus. If you do, you’ll be competing against massive amounts of family, all with the same end goal in mind. Use the day of graduation to snag photos with the close teachers, professors, and advisors who shaped your educational experience, and capture candid photos of the sheer joy of accomplishment between the graduates, roommates, and friends made along the journey.

1+ Month Before

One month is plenty of time to plan a graduation party, but if you have a lot of moving parts (i.e. friends and family taking time off to fly or drive in from out of town), you want to give yourself and your guests enough time to prepare. Rentals, like tents, tables, chairs, and other entertainment should be ordered at this time as well – for best availability, you want to secure your rentals at least one month in advance.

3-4 Weeks Before

Write out the guest list, design the invitations, and try to get them sent out at about 3 to 4 weeks in advance of your party. Keep printing and shipping time in mind – or even if you plan to handwrite the names and addresses. Invitations seem like the easiest step of the process, but in reality, they can be quite time consuming. From selecting an invitation vendor, choosing photos to use on the invites, you’ll need to account for the time it takes to print, receive, and mail out your invites. E-invites are also a great low-budget option and cut out the hassle of addressing and mailing invites, but keep in mind that family may want and cherish a physical invitation with the graduate’s photos as a keepsake.

Make sure that you have the time and location set in stone before you send out the invites; this isn’t a save the date like a wedding – at this point, you want your guests to be able to plan accordingly with venue and time accounted for.

2-3 Weeks Before

In the weeks leading up to the party, you’ll want to ensure that party décor, supplies, grocery lists, or catering are all completed. Most restaurants prefer at least 1 to 2 weeks ahead of time for scheduling larger parties. For smaller more intimate parties, 2 days to 1 week can be an appropriate amount of time to call ahead or book online. If you’re planning a lunch or dinner in a restaurant, you will definitely want to book as soon as you know the graduation date. Whether it’s a small college town or a big university, the best restaurants and favorite eateries will get booked well ahead of time.

The Week of the Graduation Party

Forget any last minute panicking, and give yourself enough time to clean, prepare food, decorate, or complete lawn work. Party prep goes far more smoothly when you can enjoy going through to motions of the preparations as much as the party itself!

The day before your delivery, Tent Guys will give you a call to ensure the delivery time is correct and that a person will be on-site to accept and check the delivery. For weekends, we deliver the day before the event, to ensure you have plenty of time to set up and decorate. Make sure your party planning committee (i.e. your crew of family and friends who are willing and able) are on-site the night before to aid in setting up tables, moving around chairs, and decorating. You won’t have to worry about the tent, flooring, or any pipes and draping – our team at Tent Guys handles all of the logistics for the more complex set-up to ensure that your event is off without a hitch!

Moreover, once the party is over, our team will also handle deconstructing any tents, flooring, and draping. The renter is responsible for breaking down tables, stacking the chairs, and ensuring all linens are in the provided laundry bag.

Graduation Party Theme Ideas + Rentals

Celebrating your grad’s successes achieved during a global pandemic is more important than ever before, especially with the vaccine rollout and herd immunity in sight! Most states and local guidelines are lessening restrictions on gatherings, notably showing an increase in the number of guests safely allowed to gather outdoors. With graduations mainly occurring during the end of Spring and the beginning of Summer, what better way to celebrate than to throw a party outdoors! Take advantage of the beautiful weather while maintaining social distancing guidelines by moving your graduation party outdoors!

If you want coverage for your graduation party, a tent is the best place to start. We offer tents in a number of sizes ranging from 10×10 to 40×40, with various accessories to customize your tent and party needs. Take a look at our catalog or consult with one of our event experts if you have any questions about our tents.

• Tent Walls
• Tent Doors

For the littles… bright, bubbly, and FUN!

Zoom school, quarantines, and A/B days in and out of school have been more than difficult for the little ones. If there were ever a year to celebrate the end of a school year, and “graduating” from one grade to another, or graduating from elementary to middle, or middle to high school, it’s definitely this year. Children deserve a bright and super fun end to their tough school year, whether that’s celebrating with some classmates, or just celebrating with their family.

A child’s graduation party should be filled with entertainment and games, snacks, and interactive activities, but also allow them to reflect on their success and soak up the pride of their family and friends for what they’ve accomplished. Set up a little graduation ceremony stage or a photo booth for them to don a cap and gown and receive their diploma. Serve goody bags with Smarties and Nerds candies.

Entertainment could be as simple as kiddie pools and bubbles, to something more mature like movie night in the backyard with a projector, or a sleepover under the stars with a bonfire and s’mores.

What you’ll need from Tent Guys:

• Staging + Stage Skirting
• Podium
• Turf
• Snack table

A picture’s worth 1,000 Words

This theme is such a classic for graduates since it’s wonderful to take a moment to look back on what your scholar has accomplished and what their future holds. Whether it’s simply childhood to present-day photos or photos of the grad in a cap in gown throughout the years, it’s a great way to decorate, keep the graduate the center of attention, and a fun way for guests to reminisce of the accomplishments of the graduate leading up to the celebration.

School Colors & Graduation Year

Decorate the party with high school colors, and set up a display of your graduate’s diploma and other awards that they’ve earned throughout their high school career. Obviously, mini graduation caps on the food and desserts, as well as the year in which the graduate is graduating are a must!

Missed Coming-of-Age Events

The reality is that many high school kids missed out on things like homecoming, prom, and school spirit week. A graduation party this year can encompass the magic of some of those events so that they can enjoy one last high school party before college, careers, or an upcoming gap year.

With our dance floor and market lighting, you can transform any space from a simple graduation party to a night spent dancing under the stars with friends!

What you’ll need from Tent Guys:

• Dance Floor + LED Lights
• Cocktail tables

Dr. Seuss themed or Picturing the Future!

Oh, the Places You’ll Go! is a graduation classic for all ages! With whimsical colors and a positive message, there are a ton of ways you can put a spin on this theme to suit your graduate, whether that’s an around the world theme, senior road trip theme, or a city theme for whichever college your graduate is headed off to. You could showcase the exciting next steps for your graduates in photos or swag as well, like photos of where they’re headed to, stuffed mascots, or t-shirts and sweatshirts of their university.

Elegant Dinner Party

Throwing a fancy backyard dinner party for your recent graduate is great because food is a great way to bring everyone together and an easy way to please your guests after a long graduation ceremony. Depending on the number of guests, this can take place indoors or outdoors, with cute table settings, elegant china, and plenty of champagne (or sparkling juice!) to toast the graduate. Ask your guests to dress up for the graduation ceremony, and enjoy a nice, formal dinner together!

What you’ll need from Tent Guys:

• Market Lighting + Planter Box Base
• 8’ Farm Table
• Tuscan chairs

Backyard BBQ

An easy party to put together is a backyard BBQ! Unlike the elegant dinner, a backyard BBQ might be the preference for the graduate who is no-fuss and has a line-up of preferred home cooked meals. All that’s really needed for this celebration is some charcoal, a grill, a few tables and chairs, and minimal decoration! The backyard BBQ is no-frills, just enjoying everyone’s company and focusing on celebrating the grad!

What you’ll need from Tent Guys:

• Folding chairs
• 6’ rectangle tables
• White 6’ table covers
• Fans w/mount
• Trash cans
• 120 qt Cooler

Major Specific or Job Specific Party

What better way to choose a theme than to be inspired by showing off what the graduate has spent about four years studying? For colors, it’s easy enough to just choose the university or college’s colors. You can get pretty creative with this one (e.g. an English major with tons of books and literature theme, an Education major with a teaching theme like apples, school supplies, etc.).

If the graduate already has a job lined up post-graduation, you can also celebrate where they’re headed next. You can print the company’s logo of wherever they’re headed next, and use it to inspire the décor or food. Securing a job is a huge success and definitely something you will want to share and celebrate with your friends and family!

Classic black and gold

There are so many incredible graduation party themes out there, but the classic way to celebrate your grad is by sticking to black and gold. Black and gold is simple, classy, and mature, but it can still be fun and glamorous. Plus, it’s super easy to find party supplies and décor in black and gold, without it being graduation themed, so you won’t have any problem planning this bash. Black and white photos of the graduate a perfect way to include photos from throughout the years without worrying about any color clashing.

What you need from Tent Guys:

• Black padded chairs
• 5’ Round tables
• Floor length black or gold tablecloths

Throw the perfect graduation party with Tent Guys!

Planning an At-Home Graduation? Things are different this year, but you can still have the perfect graduation celebration for your family and friends. Reserve your tent today! We have got your graduation ceremony covered!