


Since then, Harris’ family has added a cushion to the price of banquet tickets to cover contingencies or to pay for someone who couldn’t otherwise afford to attend.
#Family reunion free#
At one reunion, several relatives thought the banquet was free and the reunion committee ended up short on funds when it came time to pay the bill, says Harris, 80, who lives in Swedesboro, New Jersey. Doug Harris’ family learned the hard way.

You want to be as transparent as possible with your family, and money talk with family can always be a touchy subject.” The Rev. “We always encourage people to have the money conversation early and often. “The biggest mistake we see families make is not having the money conversation at all,” Luter says. Pre-COVID, the Dallas-Fort Worth area played host to as many as 250 family reunions annually, averaging about 200 people each. Your best move to prevent financial stress? Start with a family conversation, says April Luter, partnerships director for the Arlington Convention & Visitors Bureau in Arlington, Texas, part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area and home to Six Flags Over Texas, a sprawling amusement park that is a frequent destination for family reunion groups. What if the price per person turns out to be much more than you expected? Or if Aunt Alice misplaces someone’s check for the banquet? Or your mother can’t remember if she ordered a T-shirt? It can all add up to a big headache for whoever is in charge of finances, to say nothing of confusion and lost dollars. When it comes to planning and paying for a family reunion, there are plenty of ways the finances can jump the rails.
