Halloween’s almost here and it’s the perfect occasion to celebrate with a party. Costs can quickly add up when party planning, making your bank balance look a little scary! Fear not – we’ve pulled together our guide to creating a spooktacular do on a budget. From using Exaactly for digital invites to baking your own spooky treats, there are lots of ways to keep costs down.
Choose a budget-friendly venue
For the cheapest option, host a Halloween party at home. If that’s not possible there are plenty of ways to lower the cost of venue hire. Halloween falls mid-week this year, which is often cheaper for venue hire than a weekend – a win. Community halls and church halls usually offer cheap prices, so check out what’s available locally. There’s nothing wrong with trying to negotiate the price too – you’ll never know if you don’t ask!
Impress guests with boo-tiful invites
Exaactly’s here to help with your party invites. Create a free Exaactly account and digital locker, then store all the information for guests – times, location, etc – in your locker. The next step is to create a personalised Exaactly address, e.g., halloweenparty@themunsters. Guests can search for your address on the Exaactly website to find all the details they need. Top tip: If you’d like to create a digital invite use Canva. The free version of the graphic design platform is perfect for beginners and has loads of Halloween party invites you can customise. Design your invite, add your Exaactly address and it’s ready to send.
Don’t forget the pumpkins
Nothing says Halloween like pumpkins. They’re an essential part of every Halloween event, whether they’re orange Jack O’Lanterns or pale-skinned ghost varieties. Supermarkets often sell pumpkins at bargain prices or see if local allotment owners are giving surplus ones away on community groups. Go for a classic carved pumpkin with flickering tealights inside or paint your pumpkin for something a bit different. Think spiders, ghosts and spooky phrases.
Feeling crafty? Make a cheap pumpkin garland to add to your Halloween décor. Gather scraps of orange or white card, string, a pen/pencil and a hole punch. Create a pumpkin template, then use this to produce as many pumpkins as you need from your card. Use one side of a hole punch to make a neat hole in each pumpkin and thread your string through them. Hang the garlands around your venue. You can create similar garlands with ghosts, bats or anything frightening that takes your fancy.
Serve frightful food…
There are plenty of themed foods you can serve that won’t cost too much. Get creative with the flesh from your pumpkins and turn it into pumpkin dessert dip, pumpkin muffins or a pumpkin pie. Buy some inexpensive biscuit cutters and bake biscuits in the shapes of witches, ghosts, cats and more. Turn it into an activity for guests and get them to decorate the biscuits, with some inexpensive icing and food colouring.
…And drinks
If you’re going for a classic orange and black Halloween colour palette, there are plenty of options for drinks. Aperol spritzes, blood orange margaritas and tequila sunrises are all on-theme. Create fun (and inexpensive) drink stirrers by cutting out small bats, ghosts or pumpkins from leftover card and gluing them to cocktail sticks. For the non-drinkers, serve classic orange juice or this frightening fruit punch. Serving hot drinks? Create coffee art on lattes with a cheap Halloween stencil.
Choose monstrous music
Create a Halloween playlist to get everyone on the dance floor. Find a free playlist on Spotify or make your own. If you’re doing the latter we recommend The Monster Mash, Ghostbusters and The Time Warp for a frightfully good time. Want to get guests involved? Ask everyone to send you their favourite spooky track to play at the party.
Plan ghoulish games
There are endless options for Halloween games to shock and surprise your guests! Set up a spooky scavenger hunt to find Halloween-themed items round your venue, with sweets as budget-friendly prizes for winners. Give charades a Halloween twist by printing your own cards with the names of spooky characters. Think Frankenstein, Dracula and Cousin Itt. To keep kids entertained, print off free Halloween colouring sheets for them to colour in. You could also visit your local library, collect spooky kids’ books and create a reading corner at the party. What about a movie screening too? Find a list of spooky movies on streaming services you already have and ask guests to vote for their favourite Halloween film.
Commemorate the occasion
Don’t forget to take lots of pictures to remember your Halloween party. Store them in your Exaactly locker, where guests can find them using your Exaactly address.
Whatever you plan for you party, we hope you have a fang-tastic time!